


heart is sunk in love and dole

by 64907



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Explicit Sexual Content, Forced Marriage, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Orgasm Delay, Royalty, Sexual Tension, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/64907/pseuds/64907
Summary: When the infamous warlord known as The Nightwind claims him as his war prize, Prince Sakurai Sho discovers that the stories are not what they seem.
Relationships: Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho
Comments: 70
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After experiencing the shittiest block for months, short and spicy was what I was aiming for. Then this transformed into some anthropomorphic Frankenstein that's basically like, swords! spells! handsome men in distress!!! Plot really do be destroying my plans like that. Title is from Not With The Proud Kind of Beauty by Mikhail Lermontov.
> 
> Please imagine some elaborate fantasy armor similar to [this](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcR2R19Mna3x_VdSMMrx3fp2KBE_IAy0LTZZWRT60ZAdlBzTDJrX&usqp=CAU) for the beef man minus the shoulder pieces and clunky boots, and [this one](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRnvpCOizb_bMYX1P2-6bz_h0r3j2YYdwlM2B1Fj71UuplwkAUu&usqp=CAU) for our local mage boy.
> 
> Story is finished and the rest will be posted as soon as I'm done editing.

The spell was taking shape and taking too long.

Sakurai Sho could hear a barrage of footsteps followed by the clashes of swords, men and women screaming, crying. Outside, it was the last of the five-year war and the city was completely overrun.

They were losing.

He held on, hands outstretched, channeling bouts of energy even as his body shook. The barrier wouldn’t hold. He knew, but if he maintained it long enough for the women and children to get to safety, to the mountains where the frost could hide them, then he’d done his part.

Behind him, the bolts holding the doors trembled. Wood cracked and splintered, and beneath him, the ground trembled. He felt the shift in the elements—the earth was crying, the wind was howling, and the fires were dancing.

The city had already fallen.

The spell before him flickered, and with a final surge of energy, he summoned a divination array to know how far their people had come. He caught glimpses of cloaks fluttering against the winter chill, the frightened faces of children. But they were far enough, deep into the frozen woods at the foot of the mountains that there was a chance for survival.

He let the spell shatter and the barrier along with it, and he was left kneeling on the ground as the doors finally gave and soldiers strode in, their weapons drawn and bloodied, eyes and expressions equally fierce and hungry.

He faced them slowly. He was drained and perhaps the only remaining survivor of the city. A burly soldier clad in the neighboring country’s armor approached, his sword drawn.

The tip was pressed against his throat and he bared his neck. He was prepared for death. He knew their people had gotten away, that he’d somehow managed to protect them for one last time. He wouldn’t fear death now. It had already come for his family. His father the King had been slain in battle, at the borders of their lands. His mother and his sister had been leading the last of their people into the mountains. His little brother had already died the moment the city had been breached, an arrow to the throat.

“Where’s the Prince?” the soldier asked.

He met the soldier’s eyes and blinked once.

A shadow fell behind the soldier before he was pushed aside. He watched the man offer a quick obeisance and step aside, his sword now lowered.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” the soldier from earlier said. “We’ve searched the palace and this is all we’ve found. No trace of the Prince.”

The one who approached hummed, and unlike his soldier, went down on one knee so their eyes would meet. Someone of a higher rank than the general or lieutenant who had stepped aside with haste.

Silver shaped into pines danced in his periphery, dark armor glinting under the moonlight.

A finger grasped his chin and tilted his face side to side, eyes narrowing in recognition.

“This is the Prince,” the man said, gaze piercing. Behind him, more men entered the hall, the footsteps deafening as they approached.

The man let him go but didn’t stand, still looking at him. He had a serene expression, the strong line of his jaw streaked with caked blood, and he had a gash across one of his cheekbones.

Above the crimson that stained close to the man’s chin was a beauty mark, nearly indiscernible under the cover of shadows.

“Your Highness,” the soldier said again, just as another one stepped forward. This one wore a different armor, golden and proud.

“The city is burned to the ground,” the leader of the newcomers said, “and we’ll finish it by killing the heir. Either your people will do it or you give him to us. We already killed his father, anyway.”

A moment passed. In it, he could feel his heartbeat and he listened, allowing it to drum against his ears at a slow, even pace. Fear had no place in him. The closer he was to death, the more alive he felt. It was a curious thought.

“No.”

He blinked, just as the man before him stood, eyes never straying from his face.

The surprise was palpable around them. The men whispered, hushed but the content easy to discern. Eyes were widening but were quickly downcast, afraid of meeting their lord’s gaze.

No, Sho thought. Not just any lord. The Prince of the neighboring country. He recognized the armor now. The Nightwind. The subject of tales that mothers told their children. It was said he killed his enemies swiftly, that he was like the first bite of winter, cold and harsh and damning. Unforgiving and relentless. In battle, he was the shadow—lethal and unpredictable. A walking nightmare.

It was said he had no mercy.

“By the laws of battle, as the one who led the castle siege, I have a right,” The Nightwind said flatly, but loudly. “To this household in particular.”

On his knees, Sho’s blood ran cold. He remembered the laws of war from his tutors. War made monsters of the best of men and its laws remained the same: whoever spilled the first blood in a household had claims to that household.

His fate was out of his hands.

The golden soldier bristled, color draining from his face. “You cannot possibly be thinking—?”

Brown eyes met Sho’s evenly.

“I am,” The Nightwind said. “I’m claiming the Prince for my prize. Anyone who lays a hand on him will meet my sword and shall be forsaken by their lord and executed on where they stand. That’s how the law goes, doesn’t it?”

“He’s a prisoner of war.”

“Then, by all means, General, defy me,” The Nightwind said, and around them, the men collectively held their breaths.

Silence passed. Outside, there was no more screaming, only the occasional crack of growing flames. If he listened well enough, he might hear the earth weeping.

“My lord and King will never believe I died in battle,” the General said, not without arrogance. One of their former allies from the North, an Uchida. Then greed had gotten the best of them and they decided to put an end to the South and its mages. What the North couldn’t control, they would destroy.

The gold in this man’s armor gave him away; only that family would think of flaunting their wealth while at war.

“They will if I tell them that my rights have been questioned,” The Nightwind said. He tilted his head, expression darkening. He looked over his shoulder slowly, and Sho saw some of the men reach for their own swords. “If you’re confident, General, draw.”

The General’s expression soured, a muscle sliding in his jaw as he weighed his options. After another terse moment, his hand fell from his sword. “My lord will want to know that The Nightwind hasn’t softened after many years of battle. That he isn’t being uncharacteristically merciful for the first time.”

Sho met The Nightwind’s gaze once more, projecting as much defiance as he could. He preferred death than this. Surely his expression must show that.

“The Prince’s looks have pleased me,” The Nightwind said, sending a flush in Sho’s body. He felt warm all over and for the first time since they’d taken the castle, his knees trembled. “That should be reason enough. Tell your lord that he has my assurance: when I grow tired of the Prince, I will either give him to my men or kill him myself.”

It was said The Nightwind was no human.

“My lord will want me to bear witness on his behalf,” the General insisted, casting a distasteful look on Sho’s way. If this was indeed the man who had killed his father, he must be vying to completely end the bloodline for his personal glory.

“Then we bid you welcome on our return journey to the West,” the man from earlier said, the one who’d had pressed a sword against Sho’s throat. “His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Jun, will be glad to have you witness his marriage.”

“Kill me,” Sho said for the first time, his voice steady. Everyone looked at him except the man he stared at.

To Sho, this man was a legend. A Prince like him. But while Sho had chosen mastery of the elements, this man had picked the way of the sword, and in doing so had killed more men than Sho had perhaps heard tales of. Someone closer to a warmongering barbarian. If he had a say, he’d rather be with his family than in this man’s hands.

The Nightwind tilted his head. When he turned to face Sho slowly, the tension in the room heightened. The look in his eyes was curious—expectant. Like he knew that Sho would choose that moment to speak, to let his thoughts be known.

Sho mustered all the hatred he felt and spat in The Nightwind’s direction, staining the armor with blood. The bitter taste of iron against his mouth set his nerves alight.

Around them, the men were stunned to silence. Then they became sufficiently angry on behalf of their Prince, swords now drawn and eyes filled with malicious intent.

Before him, the myth of a man whose name sent fear creeping into the bones of the common folk calmly raised a gloved hand and the men stood down.

His eyes glistened as they met Sho’s.

“You would let your prize be so defiant?” the General from earlier said, his tone full of mockery.

The Nightwind paid him no mind. When he spoke, he addressed his men.

“Search the palace and take whatever treasure you can find. You have an hour. Then we make for the journey home.”

He spun on his heel, his long cape of dark purple swirling behind him. The men took one look at Sho and said, “And the Prince, Your Highness?”

“He rides with me,” The Nightwind said. Two men flanked Sho and forced him to his feet, grip unrelenting and painful around his arms. “Not a single hair on his body is to be harmed or you will answer to me. Tend to his wounds if you have to; I don’t want him dying just yet.”

Immediately, the men’s grip on his arms loosened.

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

The Nightwind left without another word, and Sho was shoved forward with no other choice but to follow.

\--

The healer wrapped his wounds with care but sadistically jabbed a finger against his bruised side just to see his expression crack.

Sho didn’t. Pain was an old friend.

“You must have a death wish for spitting on him like that,” the healer remarked. The awe was evident.

Sho gave the man a long, flat look.

A head tilt. “I suppose with your capital burning and your people dead, there’s nothing much left for you.” A snort of amusement followed. “I’m Aiba. I’ve been serving His Highness’ retinue since the day he set out for his first campaign.” He threw a glance at Sho’s left. “Your side will scar. I will never understand you mages. You’re all so willing to wound yourselves to ensure your spells will last long enough.”

Sho didn’t respond. The blade that he had pressed against his flank had been worth it. The barrier had held and what remained of their people had gotten away.

“You’re free to go,” Aiba told him, then he stopped as he seemed to realize what he just said. “Or I suppose not. You’re his, now. You go wherever he tells you. I’ve been told you are to ride with him.”

Sho didn’t deign that with a response either.

“If I were you, I’d give up with the idea of riling him up,” Aiba said, just as a soldier approached them. Sho’s presence was being requested. The hour was over. Aiba relented with a nod, and Sho was made to stand. He tried not to mind his aggrieved side.

“Tell His Highness that his future spouse has a self-inflicted knife wound on his left with the markings of a particularly formidable spellwork,” Aiba said to the soldier. “The wound will never fully heal and will scar. The rest of the bruises will fade in time.”

The soldier blinked, as if in question.

Aiba grinned.

“Better tell him fast than let him find out on his own,” Aiba counseled. “If he makes the discovery on their marriage bed, he’ll have the head of the man wrongfully accused.”

The soldier gave a curt bow and led Sho away. Past the houses turned to ash, down the winding streets he no longer recognized as the fire lapped at the pavement, and further still.

To where The Nightwind was waiting, high on his horse at the head of the cavalry. His banners flanked him, rustling against the heat and ashes as the city continued to burn around them.

The blaze made Sho’s eyes water.

A gloved hand was offered to him and he stared at it, then finally, at the man who was eyeing him with curiosity and thinly veiled amusement. The embers lent a haunting glow to The Nightwind’s face—he looked like a demon from where Sho stood.

Sho noted that the bloodstain he’d left on the man’s armor was indistinguishable now.

He took the proffered hand and sat in front of The Nightwind, astride the black steed, his back against the hard metal of his chest plate. At the nape of his neck, he could feel the man’s breath.

Hands swept down his sides to take hold of the reins, just as the soldier from earlier repeated Aiba’s words. The Nightwind took note of them, waving a casual hand in dismissal and letting his horse trudge onward.

This close, Sho could kill him. A confounding spell could disorient him, long enough for Sho to unsheath the man’s sword and skewer him with it. And yet, he wasn’t so dishonorable. It wasn’t him who had laid siege to the capital.

“The ride will take three days,” The Nightwind told him once they were past the city gates. It was the first time he spoke directly to Sho. There was nothing to make out of his tone. “I would suggest you use your energy on yourself so your wounds won’t reopen.”

They were leading the cavalry and none were close enough to hear them that Sho felt it safe to speak.

“Why?” he asked. Before he would plot to kill this man, he first had to know.

“It’s just war,” The Nightwind told him.

“No,” Sho said. He knew that already. “Why did you claim me?”

“You’re a Prince.”

Sho stared at the road ahead, his lungs still filled with ashes. He was leaving Minato behind. The place he’d grown up in. The only place he knew.

“So you would have me as a prisoner of war,” he concluded.

“No,” The Nightwind said.

Sho didn’t understand. “Explain,” he demanded.

He received a laugh in return, done right against his ear. He suppresses the urge to shiver at the proximity.

“His Highness commands me?” The Nightwind asked. “Ah, no. Even without a proper ceremony, you’re King now since your father was killed. I suppose that does give you a higher rank than me.”

“Explain,” Sho repeated. He had no time for theatrics. “You said my looks...pleased you. That can’t be just it. What do you want? You have mages in your service so it can’t be because of my abilities. What is it that you need me for?”

He felt The Nightwind deliver a light kick to the horse’s side, urging it forward with an increase in pace. Taking Sho further away from his home and closer to a strange, unknown land that lay past the borders.

To Sho’s knowledge, the Matsumotos of the West had a fortress for a castle, an entire city enclosed in a wall that had been carved from the side of a mountain. Their Prince and heir, Matsumoto Jun, had been leading their armies to victory upon victory in the last five years, establishing their empire and claiming lordship over conquered lands.

And now he was being claimed. He was nothing different. Just another conquest.

His hands turned to fists. “Explain.”

“I’ll tell you a story, Your Majesty,” The Nightwind said, somewhat wistfully. “You decide for yourself if this is an acceptable reason or not; it doesn’t matter to me either way. Many years ago before the war, a delegation took place in my country. A final attempt at establishing boundaries, if I am remembering correctly, right in the citadel where our halls stood, and everyone attended. Your country sent their King and his heir. Said heir was a haughty, overconfident mage prince who refused to play with anyone but had conjured butterflies out of flames for a boy who misstepped in climbing trees and fell, spraining his ankle.”

Sho’s breath hitched.

“Do you know that spell?” The Nightwind asked softly, with a kindness that didn’t suit the stories about him.

Sho lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, summoning a spark that quickly dispersed into multiple, tiny, glowing butterflies that fluttered around them before slowly fading into the night.

He didn’t remember a nightmare of a man who was more myth than legend, or a terror that walked with a blade that sung wordless hymns that made blood rain. What he remembered now was a crying boy who had looked at him in wonder, the flickering flames reflected in his large eyes.

The urge to peek at The Nightwind’s face now nearly overcame him.

“The Uchidas will have your head,” The Nightwind said. “You’re the last surviving Sakurai which makes you the King. If they kill you, your land is theirs. An expansion of the Northern territories. One could say that’s one of the two reasons they broke their alliance with you.”

“And the other?” Sho asked.

“The North hates mages.”

It was a simple truth.

“Marry me and you will live.”

“My family is dead,” Sho told him. He didn’t say, there’s nothing much for me. They both knew.

“Your father, yes. He had been before I made it here. You have my sincerest apologies for your little brother. The arrow that took him was a stray. I would have—”

“Spare me your words,” Sho snapped. His family was gone. He didn’t need to hear empty promises and what-ifs. It was done.

For a moment, The Nightwind said nothing.

Then: “The barrier.”

For the first time since he met this man, he felt fear.

“A formidable one. Not even the mages in my retinue could dismantle it. It collapsed on its own after standing long enough,” The Nightwind remarked. “Impressively long enough to buy time.”

Sho froze in his arms, each thundering beat of his heart a deafening echo against his own ears. He didn’t dare breathe, aware it would come out too shallow. “What have you done?” He feared the worst. In his mind, he prayed fervently to whatever god that was listening that his mother and sister had gotten away, that some of his people had survived.

“Nothing,” The Nightwind told him. “I’ve sent no scouts and left no soldiers in your city. I give you my word.”

It dawned on Sho then, what this man wanted. Politics. They had both grown up in it. “Me for my people.”

“If you marry me, you will live and they will be safe,” The Nightwind said.

“I didn’t heal your ankle that time,” Sho remembered. The healing arts were another thing entirely and beyond his expertise.

He earned another laugh, this time rich and brimming with amusement. “No. But your spell made me smile as I cried and I never forgot.”

Sho shut his eyes in defeat and acceptance. Perhaps there was no other way. He could do this. A final act of duty for his people. Before he was to be a war prize, he was first a Prince of Minato. Now its King despite its fallen state. As his country turned to ashes behind him, he hardened his heart and strengthened his resolve.

For Minato.

“Very well,” he said quietly. There were worse fates. The Nightwind didn’t turn him into his bed slave or had given him to the men. At least not yet. And the man was in no way hideous despite the dirt and blood that streaked his cheeks. He was...agreeable.

Sho remembered the stories. In some ways, they matched the man. In many others, they simply didn’t. He was being offered a far lenient fate than what he had initially imagined. For now, all Sho knew was that the survival of his people was now in his hands if he were to play his part.

“I won’t be your jester,” Sho promised as he sat straighter, ignoring the slight flare of pain on his side as he did so. His resignation didn’t necessarily mean his cooperation; the thought was unimaginable.

“No, you won’t,” The Nightwind agreed. His voice lulled the biting chill of the night. “You’re to be my husband.”

\--

Toshima, the capital of the West, was where the Matsumotos had been residing for centuries. It was a fortress, impregnable on the outside. As they approached its gates, Sho knew there was no way for his country to defeat its neighbor. Strategically, Toshima stood alongside mountain ranges, the landscape uneven to support an attack from the South but perfect for defense against any invasion from the South.

It had been why his father had chosen to meet the forces of North and West on their home ground. And he had died for it.

Sho blanked out during the procession, heedless of the questioning looks the people threw in his way. By now, word had gotten out that the beloved Crown Prince of the royal family had taken the neighboring Prince for his prize and would be wed by nightfall.

There would be no delays in a political marriage. The Uchidas were to remain to oversee the ceremonies on behalf of their King, and Sho was too battle-drained to even protest. He let himself be shuffled where he was needed: first to the hall to be presented to Matsumoto Jun’s father, then to the royal bathhouse to be scrubbed clean, to be presentable. He was given perfumed oils and soaps, and after fifteen minutes of him not doing anything but soak, an attendant had been sent in to help him wash.

The attendant was polite, eyes downcast, fingers firm but gentle. The same attendant helped him with his garments, brushed his hair, and applied a little powder and rouge to his cheeks. When he cast a questioning glance, the attendant didn’t blink.

“Your face is completely devoid of color,” was their explanation.

Sho let them work, eyeing his reflection that he no longer recognized. His powers were depleted and it would take days for him to completely recuperate. Even if he wanted to fight, the most he could do was summon a couple of flaming butterflies for The Nightwind’s amusement.

A set of jewelry adorned with gemstones was presented to him but he only shook his head. The attendant nodded, but then raised an earring made of a string of rubies, their eyes careful not to meet Sho’s.

“For color?” Sho asked.

“The Prince requested it,” the attendant said.

He remembered Aiba’s words. “I suppose something will happen if I choose to disobey.”

“It was a request,” the attendant repeated, “not a command. It’s for you to decide.”

He turned away. “Something less ostentatious.” The attendant didn’t lower their hand. “Unless this is the one specifically requested?”

“The Prince had it made for his future spouse,” the attendant explained patiently.

At that, Sho made up his mind.

He shook his head once.

The attendant nodded and tucked away the jewelry. They then guided Sho to a privacy screen where Sho saw the traditional wedding robes of the West. He put them on without much thought, detaching himself from his surroundings. The more he let his mind drift, the farther away from reality this all felt. The attendant helped him with the sashes and the adjustments of sleeves, and by the time the sun began to disappear behind the mountains, Sho was ready.

The ceremony took place in the Great Hall of the fortress where dignified lords and ladies, distinguished guests, and spectators were welcomed. A crowd had gathered in excitement, eager faces trying to get a first look at their Prince’s future husband.

When Sho walked the halls, he held his head high. He remembered doing so before, but unlike years ago that he still had his father by his side, he had no one now. He walked alone, trod alone, bore the stares and whispers and judgment alone.

Ahead, The Nightwind awaited him.

It was the first time he was out of his armor. He still had the ridiculous dark cape on, but when he offered his hand to Sho this time, it was bare. If Sho was feeling vengeful and petulant, he could summon a shock that would perhaps render the man unconscious.

He took the hand instead and allowed himself to be led. Let him appear docile and tamed, meek and repentant. He raised his head and took note of The Nightwind’s appearance without the blood and ash.

More than agreeable, he was handsome. Beautiful would be a suitable description for the arresting combination of the man’s high cheekbones, strong jaw, and full lips. He had large, brown eyes that took in Sho’s appearance slowly, appreciatively.

When the gaze landed on Sho’s ear, Sho let the corners of his lips lift up in a smile.

“It wasn’t to your liking?” The Nightwind asked.

“Ostentatious,” Sho said, low enough that no one else could hear. He maintained his amiable expression as he added, “just as I expected.”

The Nightwind’s eyes narrowed but he said no more, and Sho faced the center of the hall. In such a short time, the servants of the fortress were able to decorate the hall befitting a wedding, and the overall grandiose of his surroundings reminded Sho of the glimmer of the earring.

He had to suppress a snort of derision from escaping.

The ceremony itself lasted for an hour at most. From the corner of his eye, Sho spotted the Uchidas from the North and noted their seeming satisfaction at the turn of events. Clearly, they found the idea of the Prince of Minato clad in the traditional wedding garments to be amusing. The General who had challenged The Nightwind’s intentions raised a cup of wine in a mocking toast when Sho met his eyes.

“They will leave in the morning,” The Nightwind said next to him, lips hardly moving. “They simply needed something to report.”

Sho didn’t respond. He weathered the rest of the ceremony and the celebratory banquet with a feigned serenity that was nowhere close to what he was truly feeling. And when that was done, he allowed himself to be escorted to The Nightwind’s chambers after following the palace attendants through winding pathways.

The fortress was perhaps structured to confuse. Sho supposed he would find the time to explore; he was to live here now.

The doors to the bedchambers were quietly shut behind him once he was inside, and Sho waved his hand to light all the lanterns in the room, illuminating all corners. He took note of the spacious bed and the fine silks draped over the mattress. No doubt everyone in the citadel expected them to consummate the wedding.

He wondered, briefly, if anything would happen if nothing were to happen.

The doors swung open once more and he didn’t need to turn to see who it was. It was said that he received his title after his first conquest, when he’d ended a renowned general’s campaign by a series of clever, inventive tactics, outmaneuvering a war veteran thrice his age. It was said that The Nightwind moved like his title suggested—unnoticeable and quiet that his enemies would only realize he was there by the time they lay in a pool of their own blood.

But when he entered his chambers, Sho heard him clearly. Perhaps he didn’t see the need to mask his presence in his own home.

Sho moved to the bed, straightening his robes before sitting on the edge of the mattress. From here, The Nightwind looked more like a Prince than a warlord. It was easy to imagine him as another man and not as the one who had claimed another Prince for himself. The face that had a devilish aura to it because of the flames had disappeared. Like this, if one were to say that this Prince was as gentle as a flower, anyone might believe it.

For a moment, they stared at one another. Sho noted that the mark under the man’s lip had accompanying siblings: scattered right on the upper lip and the side of his nose. He had long eyelashes that fluttered with every movement of his eyes, and Sho could see no trace of the boy who’d fallen from a tree.

He moved his fingers to his sash and began untying. He could do this. The sooner it was over, the better. They both knew why Sho had been brought here. When he could no longer satisfy, he would be disposed of. By then, he would have perhaps regained his energy and could plot his escape.

Suddenly, a hand closed around his wrist, stilling his movements.

Sho didn’t even see him move.

He lifted his head, unable to mask the flicker of surprise that now crossed his features. The Nightwind was kneeling before him, eyes fixed on the sash that Sho had begun to undo.

“No,” was all he said.

Sho blinked. “You said my looks pleased you. Am I not desirable after all?”

The hand around his wrist tightened fractionally. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make a point. “I won’t touch you.”

“Ah,” Sho said, lacing it with disappointment, “I didn’t take you for a noble one, my lord. Or are you worried I won’t know what to do? Minato isn’t as secluded as you from the West might think.”

The Nightwind finally looked at him. This close, his face wasn’t as flawless as Sho had originally thought. Imperfections were scattered in the form of marks left by puberty. The longer Sho looked at him, the more human he seemed.

“I don’t force people to lie with me,” The Nightwind said.

“So you only marry them, then,” Sho countered. His wrist was still trapped in the man’s grip.

“It was to save you,” he said, which caused Sho to frown. “I told you. The Northerners. They would have killed you.”

“Save me,” Sho repeated. “Save me? My lord, I am here as a bargain. My docility for your word that you will not come after my people.”

The Nightwind blinked. “So there are people.”

Sho sucked in a breath. He hadn’t meant to reveal that. He summoned whatever energy he had left and allowed tendrils of it to flow through his fingers, down his forearm. Little spikes that undoubtedly transferred to the hand that held him and Sho felt the grip tighten.

“You won’t find them,” Sho promised. I won’t let you, he didn’t say.

They stared at one another—Sho poised for an attack and The Nightwind seemingly open to the idea of it. Or maybe he was lulling Sho to believe that he was. There was no change in his posture to indicate that he was bracing himself for any offense.

Sho could hurt him. Right here and now. The way The Nightwind looked at him seemed to tell him that he would be allowed to.

Did he dare try?

When The Nightwind moved, it was to pull himself up so he and Sho would be eye-level. He used his grip to tug Sho closer, almost so that their noses could touch.

Sho watched the man’s eyes stray downward.

“I will not come after them,” The Nightwind said. This close, it could be a whisper. “I gave you my word; I will not turn back on it. Your survival means the North cannot claim your lands yet.”

“So my lands will be yours,” Sho hissed.

“We have enough lands here,” The Nightwind said. “I don’t want land. I don’t want your treasure either. I looted your palace so the North would get nothing. You will have them back as soon as they’re gone; I have no interest in whatever my men found.”

“Then why did you storm the city?” Sho asked. He felt the corners of his eyes burn; his loss was still too concrete. Had it only been a few days?

The Nightwind didn’t answer. Instead, he loosened his hold on Sho and allowed Sho’s hand to fall on his lap, placing his own hand over it. With his other, he thumbed away at the corner of Sho’s eye, right where the tears began to form.

When he spoke next, it wasn’t an answer to Sho’s question.

“Whatever happens in these chambers is between us. I will never force you. If I lie with you, I want it to happen because you wanted it. If I touch you, it’s because you wanted me to and not because you feel that you have to let me.”

“No one will be convinced,” Sho said after a moment.

He earned a head tilt. “No. You keep calling me ‘my lord’. You might want to change that.”

“What would your spouse call you?” Sho asked. “If it was real?”

The Nightwind blinked, then his hands moved to retie the sash that Sho had undone earlier. He straightened the folds of Sho’s robes before he spoke once more.

“Jun would suffice.” He secured the ends of the sash one last time. “If it was real.”

“My people called you The Nightwind,” Sho told him. “As dark as the cover of night and as fast as the breeze that comes with it. Every time you unsheathe your blade, an enemy falls. Sometimes two. In my head, that’s you.”

A hum. “Not a crybaby fascinated with butterflies?” His gaze met Sho’s. “You called me that, once. ‘Little crybaby with big insect eyes, do you have to cry so much?’”

Sho didn’t remember. He said as much. “I don’t recall that.”

He earned a laugh this time. “Of course not.” The Nightwind stood and turned his back from him, undoing the clasps that held his cape. “Call me whatever you wish, then. The Northerners already know I let you get away with a few things, anyway. With them witnessing the ceremony with their own eyes, they have nothing to say that will hold any meaning.”

“I didn’t think you’d be sentimental,” Sho commented. He didn’t care about what the North might say or what the people might speculate. His thoughts were still on that impression of him that The Nightwind had done. Had he really been so arrogant back then?

He watched the man undress until only his undergarment was left. Through the thin silk, Sho noted the girth of his shoulders, the strong lines of his arms, the planes of his chest.

Battle-hardened.

Sho hadn’t seen him fight and had only heard stories. But he was beginning to think that the stories were true regarding the man’s prowess. And yet, no one had told stories of this side, of this man who used to be a boy that remembered too much.

He let out a shaky breath and shut his eyes. When he opened his mouth, he said every word carefully. “What will my lord require of me?”

The image of The Nightwind imprinted on Sho’s mind didn’t fit the man that had knelt before him earlier. Perhaps it was the man underneath the armor, the title. The crying boy whose eyes had lit up when Sho’s magic fluttered around him.

Jun.

“You have to stay,” was the answer. “If you leave, a manhunt will begin. Right now, the only person who knows about your people is me. If you leave, everyone will know.”

Essentially, Sho thought, he was a prisoner. He voiced as much.

“You may go anywhere you wish in the fortress. No one will stop you. At night, I’m afraid you will have to sleep here.” A soft smile. “We are still married, after all.”

“As my lord commands,” Sho said plainly.

He received a look that was almost a glare. “Quite honestly, Majesty, I don’t think I can make you do anything.”

Sho stood and began to undress; the weariness of everything he went through today finally sinking in. When he was down to his inner robe, he climbed on the bed and settled under the covers.

After a moment, he felt the mattress dip beside him and he waved his hand, blanketing the entire room in darkness.

“You can make me stay,” he said in the dark, eyes fixed on the unfamiliar ceiling. “You already have.”

Matsumoto Jun said no more, and Sho let the man’s breathing lull him to sleep.

\--

After some time, it became common knowledge that the Crown Prince of the West was married to the Prince of the Fallen South. Sho could indeed go wherever he wished, and he found that Toshima itself was a stronghold with perhaps five thousand abled men, and more in training.

He roamed the battle halls and watched men and women fight—it appeared that there was no discrimination regarding sex and that the only thing that mattered was skill. Sho watched them with their swords and spears, their arrows searing through the air and hitting moving targets with accuracy.

Recuperating took weeks. Blood magic ensured the strongest and most formidable of spells but took thrice as long to recover from. By the time the wound on Sho’s left flank had completely healed to become a single, thin scar, he had already finished all the books and scrolls in the fortress’ library that pertained to magic.

Toshima didn’t have a lot of mages. They did, but none were as skilled as the ones that Minato used to have. Sho saw them practice and noted the differences too keenly, his loss still too raw and new. He kept to himself mostly, and by now most people in the fortress were used to their Prince’s husband roaming about.

As for the Prince itself, he was often away, settling skirmishes and chasing off attempting invaders from their borders. If he appeared in Toshima, he would only remain for a few days, and he’d mostly spend his days on the training grounds. When he wasn’t in the fortress, Sho listened to the whispers of servants about the Prince’s lifestyle, his old habits that ceased after his hasty marriage.

He didn’t mind. Matsumoto Jun could visit a thousand brothels and he wouldn’t care; it was one of the stories about him. That The Nightwind fought and loved equally, sometimes the latter more. He resigned himself to never knowing exactly how much, for while he and his husband weren’t hostile with another, they were hardly friends.

It was a hot, humid day in the training grounds when the servants suddenly panicked, causing the soldiers to be on their guard. Sho, who had been entertaining himself with summoning a gust of wind to make the weather more bearable, looked up just in time to see a group of armed soldiers carrying wounded men.

His husband had returned.

Sho kept watching the entrance for a sign of that hideous purple cape, only to see him being supported by the healer Aiba, his face ghostly white.

He was on his feet before he knew it.

Aiba carefully helped the Prince sit up alongside some of the wounded, and Sho was close enough to see that underneath the armor were bandages. Whatever had gotten him and his men had been treated by Aiba before they made their way back.

When his husband looked at him, Sho inclined his head in greeting.

“An accident?” he asked, just as the rest of the healers stormed out of the fortress.

Matsumoto Jun looked annoyed. “I’ll have you know that I was victorious.”

Sho lifted both eyebrows at his state but said anyway, “I never doubted. But my lord, I have to ask: how did a border patrol go so wrong?” He cast a sweeping glance around them. “Nearly half of your men are injured.” He noted that Matsumoto Jun seemed to have suffered the gravest. “Whatever happened?”

“Raiders,” was the answer he received. Just as Sho was about to ask more, Aiba spoke up.

“They had a mage with them,” Aiba said. “Their magic wasn’t anything like we’ve encountered before, and by the time we realized, His Highness had already moved to protect us. He bore most of the damage.”

Sho noticed. Underneath the armor, the bandages were beginning to soak, white gradually turning to crimson. He faced Aiba. “What kind of magic?”

“Dark,” was all Aiba said. “We saw wisps of black smoke before the explosion.”

Sho immediately turned to where Matsumoto Jun sat, frowning. If what Aiba said was true, he should be dying. Dark, resentful energy were the arts Sho never trampled with; the cost was too much for power too volatile to control. And yet, its destructive abilities were undeniable and too great to imagine. Someone well-versed in it could bring an entire city to ruin at the cost of themselves.

His eyes met brown ones. How was this man still alive?

Sho gestured to the soldiers who had been sparring earlier in the training grounds. “Take His Highness to his bedchambers.” They stared at him before he fixed them with a glare. “Now.”

The soldiers moved to obey, but a healer stepped in front of them. “My lord,” she said, facing Sho, “we haven’t inspected the gravity of His Highness’ injuries yet.”

Sho quirked an eyebrow. Minding his own business perhaps left the impression that he could be easily challenged. “Can you deal with malevolent energy?”

He figured that the best of the healers was Aiba and no one else. If all Aiba had done was to apply the basest of medications and to cover the injuries in bandages, then this was something out of the healers’ hands. They could brew whatever potion or concoction to their knowledge and it wouldn’t provide any effective remedy. At most, they might only delay the inevitable.

The healer didn’t answer.

“I thought not,” Sho said. “None of your mages can, either.”

“Can you?” Aiba asked, and Sho noticed the desperation in the man’s eyes. Sho took a look at Matsumoto Jun and realized that the man was too weak to even protest.

He didn’t answer. He gestured to the soldiers with a tilt of his chin.

“Now.”

\--

As soon as they made it back to the bedchambers and the Prince was moved to the bed, Sho asked the soldiers and Aiba to help remove the man’s armor. When that was done, Sho ordered them all to leave.

Aiba gave him a questioning look, to which he answered, “Energy like this will find something to latch onto once removed. If you stay, it might transfer to you.”

Aiba took one last look at the Prince and Sho sighed. “You’ve done enough. I know you don’t trust me, but do you really have a choice?”

“It’s not my trust that matters,” Aiba told him. “It’s his.”

As soon as he said that, they both heard a weak voice from the bed.

The voice was shaky when it said the one thing that made Aiba listen.

“Go.”

Aiba did, but not without a lingering glance as he shut the doors behind him.

When they were alone, Sho started removing the bandages. “I could kill you like this,” he said aloud, and he was surprised when he earned a laugh that was close to a cough.

“Or you can sit there and wait as the raiders’ magic do it for you. Why bother?”

That much was true. He didn’t need to soil his hands. If Sho continued to do nothing, Matsumoto Jun had perhaps an hour or two depending on his resilience.

Sho took another look at him and reassessed.

Not just two. Perhaps three. This was The Nightwind, after all.

When he had the bandages opened, he took note of the multiple wounds that covered the man’s torso. Dark wisps of malevolence oozed out of the cuts, and they bled with each breath. With no bandage to staunch the bleeding, blood mixed freely with the resentful energy, and the wounds began to fester.

It wasn’t just some explosion. It was an extremely dangerous curse, and this man had walked right into it to protect the rest of his men.

Sho had to admire him for it. “How valiant of you, my lord. Do you even know what got you?”

“Something my mages and healers can’t deal with, you said so yourself,” was the answer.

Even on the verge of death, he still liked having the last word.

Sho studied him. A body like this wasn’t designed to contain magic this volatile. The energy would soon destroy him from within. Sho had only read about it in the most ancient, forbidden texts of the palace library. The curse of the Everlasting Night. How fitting for him. If Sho left him like this, the darkness would consume him, shrouding him in shadows.

Once he died, his soul wouldn’t rest. He would be cursed to roam forever, never finding peace. He’d be a creature of darkness, pure chaos condensed into something foul and sinister.

“Am I going to die?”

Sho hummed. “Yes.”

A laugh, almost choked out of him because of the effort it took him to release it. “Oh.”

Sho took a deep breath before settling one of his palms flat against the Prince’s chest, at the skin right over his heart. He felt for every beat and used it as a rhythm, an anchor to guide him.

Curses made using resentful energy required blood magic, but undoing them warranted an exchange. If it was made in darkness, it could only be undone by its opposite.

Sho summoned his core of control for the elements, the perfect balance of his magic. He did the transfer with care, each surge in time with the beat of Matsumoto Jun’s heart, cleansing out the poison that traversed through his veins. He felt the dark tendrils slowly dissipate to nothingness, vanishing as the light touched it.

One by one, the wounds began to close and they left no trace, not even a line of scar that would have served as a reminder. The one closest to the Prince’s heart was the last to heal, and by the time it did, a thin, single wisp of dark energy emanated from it.

With his other hand, Sho took it in between his fingers, examining it. He wondered what the person who’d cast the spell had to trade for this. Such a small seed of resentment but with such destructive power. Any other person hit by this would have died in minutes, doomed to an existence of hunger and rage.

He let the light flow from his palm to the tips of his fingers and the seed was extinguished without a trace.

He felt a hand close over his own where it remained over Matsumoto Jun’s heart, and Sho finally looked at him.

Sho wondered what he would hear from those lips. Gratitude? The Prince liked to have the last word. Perhaps a restatement that his fight against the raiders was something he’d won. Or a heroic declaration that it would have been an honor to die for his men and his country. Poetry to last the ages.

In the end, it was none of these.

“My people called you The Lightstorm,” he said, hand still clasping Sho’s. “The Dawnbringer. They say you pleased the elements tremendously that they forged a lasting allegiance with you, bowing to your will. They say your mastery is unmatched that even shadows seldom exist around you. That if you will it, no darkness can ever touch you.”

“Or anything that’s mine,” Sho added.

Matsumoto Jun sat up without releasing Sho’s hand. With Sho’s magic that chased his death away, color was returning to his face. Without his armor and his sword, he was no warrior. Here, he was simply a man.

Whose heart was beginning to race.

Under Sho’s palm was a change in rhythm, a sudden spike that brought an unprecedented acceleration. It sounded like music he wasn’t meant to hear.

Sho hasn’t heard of any story that had described The Nightwind with his heartbeat thumping madly. He wasn’t human in any of the stories, after all. And if he was, it was said that nothing could frighten him.

“My lord,” Sho said quietly, licking his lips, “are your nerves all right?”

A slow flutter of eyelashes. “I almost died.”

Sho replied with a hum, letting his eyes stray. There was a beauty mark right beside his hand, close to a now-hardened nipple. It made Sho wonder where else there might be.

His gaze flitted back to meet dark eyes. Perhaps they were a mirror of Sho’s own. “Are you going to thank me?”

The lazy smile that he earned made him warm. The grip around his hand shifted, lifting it from where it lay and exposing the inside of his wrist.

Matsumoto Jun’s eyes never left his when he bent down to press his lips against the skin, breath touching the fading blue of Sho’s veins. His thanks were whispered against flesh, featherlight yet audible, each syllable vibrating as it tickled Sho, sending goosebumps in its wake.

He didn’t dare tremble.

Three knocks and Aiba came storming inside the chambers without muttering any sort of apology for the intrusion, and Sho yanked his hand back, tucking it inside his sleeves.

He was very careful in schooling his features to nonchalance when he faced Aiba, whose face lit up at the sight of the Prince alive and well, followed by the narrowing of his eyes as he assessed the situation.

“I—” Aiba began, but Sho already stood and made his way to the doors.

“I’ll send for the rest of your healers,” he said, despite knowing they would find no trace of injury left.

He didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brain: we can make them kiss early for a change  
> Me: done
> 
> Actually ya know what, Jun’s armor can expose his tiddies if you like. Think like a white male game developer creating costumes for female characters in RPGs: impractical af but who cares when it’s sexy


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on second thought, this part totally qualifies under the original goal of short and spicy.

After, Sho decided he could no longer remain a passive presence that roamed around Toshima. He wasn’t disrespected outright, but prior to the Prince’s near-death experience, the majority of those in the fortress had simply thought of him as the Prince’s new husband and nothing else.  
  
Now, he could hear the hushed whispers mixed with awe as his old titles circulated again: The Lightstorm. Dawnbringer. The Exalted who walked in light and was blessed by it. The true weapon of the South. Who knew that the Prince’s spouse was the same man? When Sho walked, he noticed the stolen glances—a combination of admiration and curiosity, nothing too different from what he’d gotten in his own country, especially in the impoverished areas.  
  
He was on the training grounds rereading an old treatise about summoning arrays when a little girl approached. It only took a week since the news before someone finally dared. Sho eyed her in question, just as the little girl looked at him from head to foot. Assessing him.  
  
“Is it true that the shadows can’t touch you?” she asked finally, when her observations apparently yielded nothing substantial.  
  
Around them, everyone fell silent. Even the soldiers applying sword oil to their weapons had ceased their movements. A little servant girl had just callously addressed the Prince of the Fallen South.  
  
Sho felt the stares; most of them were on where his hands were. With a simple flick of his wrist, who knew what he could do? Aside from saving The Nightwind’s life, he hadn’t done much except reading and observe in the training grounds. No one had an accurate assessment of his abilities.  
  
Sho thought about the question and lifted the hem of his robes. From where he sat, the sunlight directly shone from above him, and he gestured to his feet.  
  
Sure enough, his shadow was present on the ground.  
  
The little girl blinked.  
  
Sho lowered his robes. “Are you disappointed?”  
  
“They said you can be the Light itself if you wanted to,” the little girl pressed, a crease formed between her eyebrows. “That the Prince is the Night but you are the Day. But how come there is a shadow within you?”  
  
He patted the space next to him and the girl sat obediently, hands clenched over her lap.  
  
“The shadow exists because it’s mine,” he said patiently. It was difficult to explain to those who had no understanding of Sho’s elemental magic: he could disperse darkness that wasn’t part of him. He could be the Light, but he needed to have his own darkness to be it. That was what his shadow stood for. It acted as the center of his energy. “I can’t do away with what’s part of me.” He opened his palm, seeing the little girl’s attention drawn to it. “But with what isn’t…”  
  
A spark grew to a flame, and Sho concentrated to summon moisture, allowing it to coalesce and form a trail of water that now circled the fire. The little girl gasped beside him, having never seen anything like this. The West was often plagued by thunderstorms, and the most its mages could summon were gusts of wind strong enough to change the storms’ direction. They never truly mastered the elements.  
  
Sho let the trail of water disperse into tiny droplets and snapped his fingers, turning the flame into butterflies that chased away the water before being consumed by them, dissolving into nothingness. Beside him, the little girl clapped her hands gleefully, her excited giggles ringing in the training grounds.  
  
In the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of purple.  
  
Lifting his head, he saw that The Nightwind stood not far from them, leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed over his chest. How long he had been watching, Sho had no idea. But his eyes never strayed from Sho’s, and Sho only managed to look away when he felt a tug on his sleeve.  
  
“Again,” the little girl said.  
  
He heard a collective intake of breath from their spectators. The little girl was commanding the Prince’s husband. A little servant girl was ordering The Lightstorm.  
  
Sho outstretched his palm once more. “Give me your hand.”  
  
The girl did, her small palm resting against Sho’s. Sho let a moment linger. “Now turn your palm outwards.”  
  
The girl obeyed, her startled gasp making Sho smile. On her little palm sat a little tornado, laced with lightning. A storm smaller than a child’s fist, but something that could grow into so much more should Sho will it.  
  
He didn’t. He watched the girl’s transfixed expression break into a delighted smile, having never done anything like this in her life.  
  
“My mama said the storms can’t be controlled,” the girl told him. “She said they could only be redirected somewhere else.”  
  
“Close your hand now,” Sho said.  
  
The little girl obeyed, and the storm she had summoned remained trapped in her hand. Her fist trembled as if she was frightened to open it.  
  
“What will happen now?” she asked, hesitant for the first time.  
  
Sho cupped her fist in his hands, channeling positive energy. “What do you want the storm to be?”  
  
The girl blinked. “Something not dangerous,” she said finally. It would appear she had seen enough horrors brought by nature in her life, despite her age.  
  
Sho offered her a smile and lowered his hands to his lap. “When you’re ready,” he said, gesturing to the girl’s clenched fist.  
  
The girl took a deep breath. Around them, everyone was looking at her, awaiting what might appear. Even The Nightwind was waiting.  
  
She slowly opened her palm and set loose to butterflies made of frost. They flew around the training grounds, encircling and enchanting the soldiers and servants alike, and Sho watched as one flew too close to where The Nightwind was.  
  
The Prince was still looking at him. He stretched out his finger and a butterfly of ice landed on it, its chill undoubtedly transmitting to his skin. Sho’s magic was strong enough that the five senses could discern his illusions: his butterflies, no matter what form they take, could be heard, touched, and even smelled. If one listened closely enough, each flap of their wings would emit the sound of ice on ice. If one breathed, they would smell winter.  
  
Beside him, the little girl was amazed. She had the brightest smile now, and Sho offered his hand to her which she took more eagerly than the last time.  
  
“If you snap your fingers, they will disappear,” he said. He lent her the energy needed to do the trick and let go, and waited as the little girl did as she was told.  
  
A snap and the butterflies dissolved into tiny snowflakes, save for the one that was currently resting on the Prince’s finger. Sho didn’t let that one disappear just yet.  
  
He let that one fly close to The Nightwind’s face, curious if the man would reach out and crush the illusion himself. But he didn’t lift a hand anymore, instead assumed his posture from before. The butterfly hovered close to his cheek and still he did nothing, eyes fixed on Sho.  
  
Sho had seen that look before. When The Nightwind had been kneeling before him and an unsaid challenge lay between them. He knew that look. Knew what it said without anyone saying it.  
  
Did he dare?  
  
He let the butterfly linger closer, its icy chill touching the sides of The Nightwind’s face. Brown eyes left Sho’s and followed its movements, tracking its flight. His posture seemed relaxed, but Sho wondered if he truly was.  
  
Sho remembered the last time: the heartbeats that had rivaled war drums, resonating from within.  
  
His butterfly of ice inched closer still and landed right on The Nightwind’s mouth before shattering into a thousand miniature snowflakes.  
  
By the time The Nightwind took another look at him, Sho already left the training grounds.  
  
\--  
  
Another border skirmish and raids to lesser villages preoccupied The Nightwind and his army for the next few weeks. When he left, he’d done so with a final glance to where Sho had been watching from one of the fortress’ towers.  
  
To see him off, Sho had waited until the cavalry was past the citadel’s gates before letting streaks of fire dance before The Nightwind’s horse, startling the poor animal as the flames transformed into butterflies.  
  
The look on his husband’s face amused him for days.  
  
To make use of the time he had in abundance, he looked for the mages employed in the Prince’s service and decided to learn from them. By saving their Prince’s life, he had gotten the respect of anyone serving under the Prince. They were more open to him now compared to before. Despite the stories that circulated outside this country, The Nightwind was beloved by his people.  
  
The mages in the employ of the royal family focused on mastering the air and nothing more. They could conjure flames, but just enough to light their lanterns at night. The water they commanded was only sufficient to quench the soldiers’ thirst in case of prolonged travels. They had no control over lightning. The earth wouldn’t move at their behest.  
  
“Why does His Highness always make use of butterflies?” one of them asked. Sho didn’t mind the title; despite The Nightwind always addressing him as Majesty, he never earned that. He was more used to this.  
  
“They’re beautiful but short-lived,” he said. “They die after they transform.”  
  
“And does that make them better to control?”  
  
These mages didn’t construct illusions. They wouldn’t waste their energy on it. But Sho was from the South, and in the South, energy wasn’t stored—it was cultivated. He had an abundance of it that sparing a few to make pretty images was nothing.  
  
“No,” Sho said. “It doesn’t matter what form they take. I just like butterflies.” To prove his point, he summoned moisture that took on the silhouette of a mermaid before letting it freeze and shatter into dust.  
  
“I suppose,” he said after the silence that followed, “that makes me different from you. If our countries didn’t have their differences, perhaps the South could’ve taught you.”  
  
“Lightstorm,” one of them said—Sho recalled his name to be Nino. He’d introduced himself as such, before. “We’re no match for you. What takes very little effort for you will demand years of learning from us. The Exalted shouldn’t waste his time.”  
  
Sho blinked at the titles. He was used to hearing that too, but not so confidently said in front of him before. Not here. “Is this how His Highness refers to me when I’m not around?”  
  
Nino let out a small smile before shaking his head. The others around them had similar expressions on their faces.  
  
“It’s how the people in the citadel refer to you after you saved His Highness’ life,” he told Sho. “And to answer: no. That’s not how the Prince does.”  
  
“His Majesty, then?” Sho guessed. “He likes to remind me that I’m now the King of a nonexistent country in ashes.”  
  
The mages shook their heads, careful not to meet his eyes. It was Nino who said, “We cannot say.” And at Sho’s questioning stare, he added, “It’s not our place.”  
  
At that, he frowned. He’d heard these people speak his titles freely, names bestowed upon him as he’d become the subject of tales. In a way, he wasn’t that different from The Nightwind himself. As the little girl had put it, he was the Night, and Sho was the Day.  
  
What wicked magic had been at work to tie their fates together, he mused.  
  
They couldn’t say, they’d told him. His curiosity was ignited; it could be anything demeaning or embarrassing. Either way seemed likely; his husband wasn’t a predictable man. The longer Sho remained by his side, the more he’d known that not all stories about him were true.  
  
And the ones that were had another side to them that nobody quite knew.  
  
For instance, in the South, it was said that when The Nightwind moved, he did so that he became one with the darkness. Indiscernible. Where he walked, only death followed, and it came in swift wings that were barely audible in the night. It was said that his blade earned its name because of the gleam it emitted after it was drawn, and the sound of it unsheathing was the last most men heard before they met their end.  
  
Sho learned that these were half-truths. For one, The Nightwind wasn’t as stealthy as everyone thought. Sho could hear him. Whenever he returned to the fortress after settling his border affairs, Sho knew. He could hear the press of hooves against the earth, the clink of armor, even the flutter of that ridiculous cape against the wind.  
  
Whenever he was around, Sho...simply knew.  
  
The matter about the blade was something he still had to settle. He hadn’t thought to ask about it before.  
  
He waited until the Prince’s return, which took about a week. He waited until the man was in their chambers, shrugging off his armor and tossing his cloak aside. He waited until he saw the blade in its scabbard in the man’s hands.  
  
“Moonshine,” he said. That was its name. The nightmarish steel that sung requiems.  
  
The Prince’s movements ceased. He looked over his shoulder slowly in the darkness of their room. Sho hadn’t bothered with the lanterns; he had been meditating when this man had barged in.  
  
“There aren’t many who can sneak up on me,” The Nightwind remarked.  
  
“Don’t be disheartened,” Sho said. “I’ll be like you and be overly loud next time.” The moonlight lent an ethereal glow to the side of Matsumoto Jun’s face, and like this, he looked like a polished, exquisite jade—sculpted with painstaking attention to detail. “I heard you come.”  
  
“Through the doors,” The Nightwind said.  
  
“No,” Sho said. “Even from the gates. It’s the same when you stormed into my city. I heard you as soon as you breached the wall.” Not all stories are true, he didn’t add. “I heard you when you got too close to my barrier.”  
  
The sword was unsheathed then, steel glinting under the moonlight. Sho continued, “I heard when that sword of yours tried to destroy the barrier. How did it get its name?”  
  
The Nightwind twirled his sword in his hand, the air singing as steel cut through it. “I never led a siege in the morning.” The sword was then pointed to where he sat comfortably. “I’m sure you’ve heard of that.”  
  
Sho stood then, crossing the distance between them, letting his fingers touch the blade tip. If he pressed harder, he’d draw blood. He didn’t, instead tracing the craftsmanship of the weapon. If a curse had been placed on this sword, it would undoubtedly grow malevolent because of all the lives it had taken.  
  
Under his fingers, he could sense the sword hum.  
  
The Nightwind didn’t move. Sho had to strain to hear his breathing, and Sho realized: the man was on his guard.  
  
His stance now amused Sho; there wasn’t anything to be prepared for. He had been far more vulnerable when he lay dying, and they had been alone as well. Sho was merely curious. He wasn’t planning on attacking.  
  
“It got its name because it gleams in the dark,” Sho said, answering his own question. He had suspicions, but he’d thought it was more poetic than that. He found the truth to be a bit anticlimactic.  
  
“No,” The Nightwind said. “Not all of it catches light.”  
  
Sho looked at the blade again, and sure enough, only a fraction of it does. The part of the blade attached to the hilt didn’t glint under the moonlight.  
  
He lowered his hand and The Nightwind sliced through the air, undoubtedly lethal had there been an opponent. The act disturbed the stillness, and Sho watched.  
  
The movement made it seem that the blade itself had turned into a crescent moon. Because it had been done quickly and with precision, it was almost like an illusion. Dream-like with its shimmer. If war poetry had a visual, it would have been this.  
  
The sword was sheathed back into its scabbard before Sho opened his mouth to speak.  
  
“I’ve never seen you fight,” he admitted. He’d heard endless tales about it, of course. But as he was finding out, the tales never did this man any justice. Either they were severely exaggerated to the point of turning the man into legend, or they were flowery enough that the legend felt more like a myth.  
  
“It would take more than butterflies to startle me,” The Nightwind said.  
  
Sho laughed.  
  
“The ice said otherwise,” he remembered, and the Prince faced him.  
  
In the dark, if rouge suddenly kissed the Prince’s cheeks, Sho couldn’t tell. Was his husband easy to embarrass? All he knew was that beneath the tough, daunting exterior was a warmth that beat steadfastly. Furiously. Maybe being alone with Sho changed him. Outside, he was a terror known in every corner of the world, a horror to behold.  
  
In here...what was he in here?  
  
Sho was certain that The Nightwind in those stories wouldn’t have knelt before him or kissed his wrist with a gentleness that sometimes haunted his dreams. The warlord from the hearsays was irreconcilable with the man whose eyes had widened when frost had touched his lips.  
  
He remembered that the man had looked like a demon when they’d first met, embers lending a ghoulish look to his otherwise handsome face. But there was no demon now. Even when the sword had been drawn, there was also no threat.  
  
It was as if Sho knew that had the sword been pointed at him, he still wasn’t in harm’s way.  
  
He had been certain of it as much as he’d been certain of always knowing whenever this man had returned.  
  
“Or does my lord prefer the fire more?” Sho asked, remembering how those flames had brought wonder and a smile to a child’s face.  
  
The Prince still looked at him, half of his face hidden in shadows. If Sho wished it, all the shadows would disappear. But he liked the way Matsumoto Jun looked now: he seemed more perfect this way. Ethereal. An enticing beauty interwoven with the darkness.  
  
“Do you know what the people say, Majesty?”  
  
Sho wasn’t expecting the question. “No,” he admitted.  
  
“They say the Night has been conquered,” the Prince said, the corner of his lips illuminated under the moonlight curved up in a smirk. “They say the Lightstorm has cast a spell on The Nightwind which saved his life, but in return bound their lifeforce together. That the Prince of the South brought dawn as he always did, chasing away the Everlasting Night.”  
  
Sho hadn’t heard of those, but it wasn’t far from his expectations. He had been the subject of such tales before, and this time, an ounce of it had a bit of truth in them.  
  
But he was curious. As always. As always with this complexity of a man that stood before him, his total opposite.  
  
“And what does my lord say?” he asked.  
  
“A spell was indeed cast,” the Prince agreed. He carefully placed his sword in its rack and leaned against one of the tables, giving off an air of false vulnerability. Like this, it seemed too easy. He appeared to be open.  
  
“Which conquered the Night?” Sho asked. “Or was it the one that bound our lifeforce together?”  
  
“Neither,” The Nightwind told him. Sho blinked in question, masking his surprise. “It was from long before. In the form of butterflies made out of flames.”  
  
Question after question formulated in Sho’s mind. He slept beside this man every night and each time he thought he learned more about him, the more he was proven otherwise. There was a shroud of mystery that he could never unravel unless he asked.  
  
In the end, he settled for the most pressing one.  
  
“Why did you storm the city?”  
  
The first time he’d asked, he received no response and only a series of promises. The promises had been kept as well as the secrets, but Sho felt that he’d waited long enough. He’d grieved. He’d wept for his people and his home, had shed his heart along with his tears. And in his pain, he continued living. He stayed. He was still here.  
  
“I told you,” The Nightwind said.  
  
Sho didn’t understand.  
  
“A spell was cast,” the man repeated, “in the form of butterflies made out of flames from a long time ago.”  
  
Sho’s breath stilled. For a moment, he couldn’t move.  
  
“You were looking for me,” he realized.  
  
The Nightwind said nothing. Without the moonlight, he could very well disappear. Was that how he killed his enemies? By blending with the darkness until he was mere shadow?  
  
“Why?”  
  
“The city was burning when I got there,” the Prince told him. “I was delayed.”  
  
Sho understood then. “The North. The ones that killed my father. They would have been first to the city. To the palace. In fact, they should have.” The North had already defeated their forces by then. They ought to have taken the city by nightfall but they didn’t; Minato had only fallen by midnight. The truth dawned on him now. “You killed them.”  
  
In battle, no one would know who’d slain who.  
  
Had the North gotten to the palace first, they would have killed Sho. His barrier would have been gone by then; he had always planned for it to collapse as soon as his people had been far enough. But it hadn’t been the bannermen of the North that he’d first laid eyes on; it had been the same, hideous purplish hues that signified the West.  
  
His eyes flitted to where Moonshine stood, tucked safely in its scabbard. He remembered feeling that blade against his magic. “That’s why you were trying to take it down.”  
  
“Before you, I’ve never encountered any kind of magic that stood firm against my sword.”  
  
“How did you know it was me?” Sho asked. It had been years. He barely even remembered Matsumoto Jun’s face. He hadn’t thought to associate that crying boy with the stories of conquest and glory.  
  
“Some spells leave an impression.”  
  
He didn’t say, I would know you. He didn’t say, I would know you in the same way you’ve always known it was me, in the same way you’ve always heard me.  
  
He didn’t say, I would always.  
  
But Sho heard him anyway.  
  
The moon was now obscured behind the clouds, dimming the only illumination they had. Like this, Sho could barely see him. But if he listened closely enough, he heard: the quiet inhale and even quieter exhale, the rustle of fabric against wood with each minuscule shift in movement.  
  
If he stood closer, he wondered what else he would hear.  
  
He was moving before he knew he was. A snap of his fingers was all it took and butterflies out of flames fluttered around them, each flap of their wings letting Sho see what he wanted to see.  
  
No, _needed_. He needed to see this man’s face. The urge came unbidden, forceful and undeniable.  
  
“How do you refer to me?”  
  
Matsumoto Jun blinked. Not even the darkness could obscure the hue of his eyes; glowing under the flutter of fire. “Majesty.”  
  
“No,” Sho said. “Something else.”  
  
“Lightstorm,” was the next answer, the smile broadening. His eyes glinted in what appeared to be mischief, and Sho realized: the man was delighted.  
  
Sho shook his head. “Not that.”  
  
“Dawnbringer,” The Nightwind said. “Exalted. What else would I call you?”  
  
Sho took a step forward, shortening the distance between them. In a way, it felt like a leap. And the further he went, the more impossible it would be to return.  
  
But would he wish to?  
  
“The one you use when I’m not there,” he said when he stood at an arm’s length away. The flames danced around them, but Sho paid them no mind. It was a child’s trick. Any mage trained in the South could conjure these things at the age of ten. Sho had been fourteen when he’d first done it in front of this man, and more than two decades had passed.  
  
“Husband,” Sho said. It was the first time he’d said the words aloud. He saw Matsumoto Jun take note of it, and a slight shift in his expression was his response.  
  
“Is that how you refer to me?” he asked Sho this time.  
  
In his thoughts, Matsumoto Jun was The Nightwind. It had been even before they’d met. In every waking moment, he would remember that he was married to this terror of a man and before the man’s name came to him, his title did first. He’d grown up hearing that epithet. It was hard to shake off.  
  
“To me, you are The Nightwind,” Sho admitted. The Prince merely regarded him. “In my thoughts, it’s the same. That’s how I think of you, when I do.”  
  
Matsumoto Jun said no more. He didn’t appear surprised.  
  
Sho took another step and with a flick of his fingers, extinguished the flames. Like this, he couldn’t see. But he also couldn’t be seen and he found that he preferred it. Let the moonlight shine whenever it wished and show them what it wanted them to see once the clouds parted for it. He wouldn’t manipulate the elements to his selfish whims.  
  
“But when I dream,” he whispered, suddenly afraid that anyone else might hear despite knowing no one would. He glanced at the rack closest to them. “When I dream, there’s no sword. No armor. No horse. No banners. When I dream, there’s no legend. Or myth.”  
  
It was the only time he’d admit it. That this man had plagued his dreams since Sho had saved him from the brink of death, that he’d done so effortlessly and stealthily, true to the tales about him. That each time he left, he would inevitably subject Sho to these dreams where the rhythm matched his pulse and heat spread across his entire body, leaving him quaking.  
  
The other elements didn’t exist whenever he dreamt of Matsumoto Jun. There was only fire that engulfed him, a blaze that wouldn’t go away. A quasar on the edge of what was known.  
  
He heard movement more than he’d seen it. The Nightwind shifted; fast and unexpected, and when he stopped, he was close enough that his breath tickled Sho’s cheek. When Sho looked up, he knew he was looking at those eyes, as black as the Night itself.  
  
He could summon a flame now, just to see. But he didn’t think he needed to.  
  
“What am I in your dreams?” was the question, said against the side of his face. The voice was deep, lower than Sho had ever heard. They were of similar height; it would only take a tilt of Sho’s head.  
  
“Not what,” Sho said. “Who.”  
  
He reached up, pressing his palm against the thin, silky material of the man’s inner robe, flat against his chest. He felt the thrum and knew it matched his own—spiking and frenzied.  
  
“Jun,” he whispered.  
  
A hand grasped the back of his neck, tilting his face up before guiding it forward, and Sho took his next breath against the Prince’s mouth. He couldn’t suppress the shudder that escaped from him.  
  
It wasn’t gentle. There was no kindness in the way he was being kissed; it felt like with his admission, he’d inadvertently unleashed a storm he had no idea how to control. He fisted at what he could reach, pulling the man closer as he reciprocated, parting the seam between his lips. Heat swept in waves, and Sho felt lightheaded with it, his senses now on overdrive.  
  
When they broke apart, Sho found himself craving. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time and it sweltered him, muting everything else.  
  
The next question was pressed against his skin, where his pulse was. He bared his neck and shut his eyes, evening his breaths though they came out rushed. “What did I do in your dreams?”  
  
There was no death in his dreams. His most private thoughts that not even his mind knew but his body acknowledged. In there, it was like this: light and dark converging, the night meeting the dawn. Like daybreak.  
  
A thumb grazed his bottom lip and Sho pressed a kiss to it, the roughness of calloused skin foreign but welcomed. It dragged across his jaw and down to his throat, applying a smidgen of pressure when it reached the dip between his collarbones.  
  
“Tell me,” he heard, the syllables dancing across his flesh.  
  
He couldn’t. He didn’t know how. His dreams were his, and right now was the closest he’d been to them. But not quite. And yet the words wouldn’t come.  
  
A beat passed, then another. When Matsumoto Jun pulled back, his hand lingered, resting on the side of Sho’s neck, thumb stroking his cheekbone slowly. Affectionately.  
  
“You have to tell me,” he said. “Or I won’t.”  
  
He stepped back, letting his hand fall and Sho go.  
  
Sho wondered what Matsumoto Jun looked like right now. He wanted to see. But the shadows that blanketed the man hid his face from him, the abyss claiming him once more.  
  
“I will sleep elsewhere,” he told Sho, and as silent as the night itself, he was gone.  
  
Unconsciously, Sho’s hand flew to his mouth, chasing after the phantom that he had only dared to dream about before.  
  
It took him moments before he realized that Matsumoto Jun had never answered his question.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the longest part out of the five. Obviously I suck at making all parts even so I'm sorry for that.

Sleep had been elusive. After he woke from a light and dreamless slumber, Sho discovered that a sizable crowd had already gathered in the training grounds. Attendants, healers, servants, and soldiers took their places to watch, and Sho heard the sound of metal hissing through the air before he turned to look.

Only one could gather a crowd like this so early in the morning. Only he could make anyone cease with their morning duties and other affairs.

The Prince was in his training leathers with arms bared, trousers encasing his thighs, his boots up to his knees. He moved with grace as he evaded the attack aimed at him, and flipped his sword at the last moment before it shattered the shield that had been raised to block it, sending splinters everywhere.

“He came into the ring and said he was going to have a round with everyone,” Aiba said, now standing beside Sho. When Sho’s eyes fell on him, he smiled and inclined his head in polite greeting. “I’m here in case he injures anyone; he’s in a mood.”

Sho turned to his left. “And you?” he asked Nino, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Are you here to have a round with him, too?”

“While His Highness isn’t picky about his opponents, my energy isn’t as profuse as yours,” Nino remarked. “No mage here is a match for him.”

“And the soldiers are?” Sho asked. He turned back to watch the fight, only to see the soldier from earlier now disarmed with Moonshine’s tip hovering close to the man’s throat.

“I yield,” the soldier said. “Your Highness.”

He exchanged a look with Aiba.

“Not really,” Aiba said. “But when he’s in a mood, someone has to fight him until he gets tired of it.”

“I see,” Sho said, nodding. “And how long has this been going on?”

Beside him, Nino smiled. “Hours.”

Both of Sho’s eyebrows lifted. “And how many have been sent to the healers?”

“A quarter of the usual,” was Aiba’s response. “Don’t worry. No one needed immediate attention. The men know by now that before they seriously get hurt, they ought to yield. So His Highness hasn’t maimed anyone.” A pause. “Not yet.”

This was the first time Sho had witnessed his husband in a strange mood. Usually, whatever bloodlust he had had already been sated by the time he returned. That blade of his wasn’t unsheathed in battle whenever he was here; if it was pulled free from its scabbard, it was because it had to be tended to and maintained.

Another soldier stepped into the ring and Sho saw the Prince crack his neck a few times before twirling his sword in hand. That nightmare of a weapon that came with him, an extension of his being. Moonshine was never seen without its master, and its master never without it.

The Prince extended his arm, his blade glinting under the sunlight. When he moved and sent sawdust into the air, Sho remembered.

Before this, he’d never seen him fight.

He was fast. Quick on his feet and light with each step; he evaded as if he was dancing and every swing of a sword against his was the tune, the rhythm he had to follow. He parried strikes with ease, steel against steel, his other arm firmly pressed against his back. Refined. Sho watched as if in a trance, belatedly realizing that there was no armor on his person.

He had to be moving faster now; the armor would have weighed him down. And then, it came to Sho: it was as if he knew exactly what to look at. How the man would move. How he wouldn’t go against the air and instead follow it, become it.

The soldier’s sword flew across the air, and finally, the other arm that had been tucked behind rose to catch it. With the soldier disarmed, the man conceded his defeat and stepped aside.

By now, the Prince had fought most of the men. Anyone left was either here to watch or had already reconsidered their original plans. If this had been going for hours as Nino had said, there would be no soldiers left once the hour was up.

“When he gets into these moods,” Sho began, and Aiba and Nino perked up beside him, “what gets him out of it?”

“No one has bested him on the field,” Nino said, a fact that Sho had known. “The last time this happened, word reached the citadel that the North has defeated the South in battle.” He inclined his head in apology. “The Prince left the training grounds then, only to mount his horse and march with the cavalry to the South.”

To find me, Sho didn’t say. They didn’t need to know. Whatever happened in their chambers was between them.

He must’ve ridden without rest for three days at most to make it to Minato before the Northerners did. To kill them before they could sack the city. The palace.

“What got him into this mood the last time?” Sho asked.

“The South refused the missive he sent,” Aiba said. Sho faced Aiba slowly, unable to comprehend what he was hearing. Aiba seemed oblivious and continued, “Your Highness would know: the West remained a neutral party to the feud between the North and the South. His Highness, the Crown Prince, has a personal grudge with the Uchidas because of how often they invaded our borders and made it look like accidents, but without approval from the King, the best we could do was to push the Northerners back where they belonged. When war broke out, the North requested for an audience and proposed an alliance between their country and ours. The Prince refused.”

“On account of the skirmishes that were already taking place even before the war,” Sho said.

Aiba nodded. “You might think that the Prince has no right to. The Uchidas thought so, too. But here in the West, it’s the Prince who leads the cavalry. He is the Captain of the Royal Army and the Heir to this country. The King grants him the right to decide on where the army will march next; it’s nothing different than letting him decide where he might die.” Aiba inclined his head. “His words, not mine.”

Another soldier stepped forward in challenge, and swords clashed before their eyes. Sho watched but his mind drifted as he dissected Aiba’s words in his head.

“What do you mean the South refused his missive?” Sho asked. “We received no missives.”

Nino cleared his throat, and Sho glanced at him. “It never made it to the capital.”

Sho’s eyes widened. He had been in the capital when his father had ridden out to meet the forces of the North. If a missive from the West had been sent offering aid, he couldn’t fathom why his father had refused.

“What did the missive say?” he asked, bracing himself. The war was like a fog in his memory; he recalled it in flashes: in screams and streaks of blood, in magic done out of desperation, in prayers and pleas to the Heavens that were never answered.

In fire that had risen as high as the skies, the home he once knew in ashes.

“That His Highness, Prince Jun, would ride to the South against the Northerners to help your country win the war,” Nino said. “Or so we assumed. You must understand, Your Highness, that until then, the West had been neutral. But when word reached Toshima that the North was marching for war, the Prince reacted. He never said why.”

He didn’t need to, Sho thought. He’d said it last night.

“The late Southern King refused,” Aiba said regretfully, and Sho shook his head. It was unthinkable. The West had The Nightwind, the supreme commander that no one had defeated. His name alone struck fear in the hearts of the bravest men.

“I don’t understand why,” Sho admitted. His father could’ve saved Minato. Had he agreed, there would still be a Minato. “What else did the missive contain?”

“The Prince sent an emissary along with his missive,” Nino informed him. “We don’t know the entirety of it. After all, the Prince told his messenger to head for the South and beg for an audience with the King and if he didn’t make it, he was to destroy the missive he was carrying and end his own life if he was captured by the North. It was that secret.”

The soldier from earlier screamed in pain, and Aiba exhaled before he gestured to the healers to take the man away. Sho saw that blood now covered the man’s entire arm, but not his sword hand. He could still fight after he received treatment.

“You Southerners never really dealt with us before,” Aiba explained, stepping aside to let the healers pass through as they carried the soldier’s body to the infirmary. “It is to our belief that the late King refused because he simply didn’t trust the Prince.”

Sho felt that there was more to it. “Where’s the emissary?”

“Slain,” Nino said. He inclined his head in Sho’s direction. “By your late King, I’m afraid.”

“Who wrote the missive?” Sho asked.

Both Nino and Aiba’s gazes turned to the field, to where a lone man stood in the center, wiping his blade free of blood with a cloth that he then carelessly tossed aside.

“And no one else knows its contents?” Sho confirmed.

Nino faced him, a frown on his youthful face. He was shorter than Sho, but he appeared shrewd. Perhaps he was as clever as his appearance suggested. “When word reached Toshima that the South refused, the battle was nearing its end. After all, our emissary was dead. By the time the cavalry set out, the North was winning.”

“We rode for two days without stopping,” Aiba informed him. “It usually takes three to reach your country, but the Prince wouldn’t have it. You can say he was possessed by something at the time. And when we made it there, well.”

Aiba trailed off, but Sho didn’t need him to continue. After a momentary period of silence, he let out a breath.

“No mage is a match for him,” Sho repeated.

Instead of confirmation, he received a glare from Nino and a look of concern from Aiba.

“No one in Toshima,” Nino affirmed carefully, as if he was now choosing his words.

“I’m from Minato,” Sho said confidently, holding his head high.

He stepped forward into the ring.

\--

Before he could make it to the center, a staff blocked his path. The training grounds had a fightmaster, a man with sun-kissed skin and light-colored hair. He didn’t look like much, but Sho thought not to underestimate him. This man might’ve been the very same person who’d once taught the Prince how to fight.

“Name your terms,” the fightmaster said. Ohno. Vaguely, he recalled the Prince addressing the man before. “Your Highness,” he added belatedly.

In the middle of the training grounds, the Prince lifted his head, eyes narrowing at the sight of Sho.

“What are his?” Sho asked, gesturing to The Nightwind with his chin. It wasn’t a simple sparring session like he’d originally thought. Every soldier who had stepped in earlier had stated their terms before engaging, and it was honored.

“If the Prince wins, the defeated gets another six months of patrol duty on the borders,” Ohno answered.

By now, Sho could tell that the men hated patrol duty. Who wouldn’t when every now and then the North would send raiders and disrupt the peace? They would claim villages that existed at the very edge of the Western territory and terrify the people, stirring unnecessary chaos.

But someone had to guard those borders, and so far, every soldier who had stepped forward already had an additional six months of service.

“If I win,” Sho said, knowing that everyone present was listening including his opponent, “the Prince will answer whatever I ask of him.”

“Does His Highness agree?” Ohno asked, addressing the Prince this time.

Sho took note of how The Nightwind looked like without the cover of darkness. His face was flushed and his breath came in gasps, his cheek was streaked with dirt as well as his slacks. There was no sign of injury on his person, and the hand that held his sword had its grip tight around the hilt.

The way he looked at Sho was the same as the night before, when Sho had Moonshine underneath his fingers. Assessing him with quiet regard.

“The border patrols don’t apply to him,” the Prince said after a moment, and around them came murmurs of agreement. “I’m changing my terms, fightmaster, only for him.”

“Very well,” Ohno said.

“If I win,” The Nightwind said, his voice carrying out through the crowd, almost melodic in the airy lilt it carried, “His Majesty will call me by my name.”

The training grounds quelled. Even the elements did, as if some divine power intervened and forced them to silence. For a breath of a moment, the peace wasn’t something even the wind dared to shatter.

Then it passed.

“Does His Highness—Majesty—accept?” Ohno asked.

Sho nodded. “I accept.”

The fightmaster lowered his staff and let him through.

He took each step leisurely, sizing up the field. The hem of his robes fluttered against the light breeze, treading against sawdust. When he reached the center and stood a few feet from The Nightwind, he received a head tilt.

“You’ll fight me in that?” he asked, gesturing to Sho’s clothes.

Sho met his stare evenly. “Shall I disrobe for His Highness’ pleasure?”

A collective gasp emanated from the training grounds, and Sho thought he saw Nino smile in amusement somewhere in the crowd. And then Sho remembered: no mage in Toshima was his match in the ring. Perhaps no one had fought him before, at least not anyone in robes.

The way Matsumoto Jun looked at him now reminded him of that time they’d met, when he’d been kneeling on the ground after spitting on the thick obsidian armor.

Moonshine sliced through the air and left a mark between them, a line so thin and straight that it was a demarcation. Sho eyed it in wonder.

“This one divides,” The Nightwind said. “I will not cross to your side.” He eyed Sho’s robes appreciatively, lingering for a moment at the spot where the fabric ended and revealed his neck. “I would hate to destroy His Majesty’s robes.”

He was putting himself at a disadvantage. Sho was a mage. He was highly skilled in long-ranged attacks, in spells that didn’t require proximity, only accuracy. The Nightwind knew this. Everyone did.

Sho was no beacon of morality, but the idea didn’t sit well with him. He inclined his head in agreement. “Very well,” he said and outstretched his palm.

He summoned water and light, transforming them both to form a sword made of ice. It shone brightly, but only because of the sunlight. When Sho lowered it, it emitted a faint, dull glow, rendering it almost lackluster.

Around them, the crowd held its breath. No one had heard of The Lightstorm carrying a sword before. Sho hadn’t carried this one in a long time. He missed the weight of it in his hand.

“What is its name?” The Nightwind asked, eyes fixed on the weapon that Sho now carried. Sho saw his surprise, the lift of his strong eyebrows, and the slight parting of his lips.

“It doesn’t have one,” Sho said. He sensed the confusion around them and smiled. “I haven’t used this one in years. And the last time I did, it was to show that I could create it. It hasn’t been used in battle long enough to earn a name.” He raised the sword in the Prince’s direction. “Unless the Prince would like to give it one?”

“If I win, would you let me name it?” the Prince asked, assuming his stance: one hand at the back, his sword aimed at the ground.

“That’s two terms,” Sho noted. “I should add another, then: if I win, the Prince will only tell me the truth.”

Brown eyes narrowed, but the fightmaster behind Sho voiced his agreement. The terms were set. Sho took a step forward, closer to the line that divided their sides.

“You may cross,” The Nightwind said when he stood close enough. At Sho’s questioning look, he added lightly, “I only said I won’t. It doesn’t apply to you.”

Either he was being arrogant and confident regarding his abilities or he was being respectful of the terms he’d set for himself. There was no error in it: Sho hadn’t agreed to not crossing the line from his side.

But he looked at the line close to the tip of his boot and thought: it’s as if he wants me to.

The thought was simultaneously enticing and frightening.

Matsumoto Jun hadn’t moved from where he stood, about five paces away from the line he’d put between them. Moonshine remained pointed on the ground, and the Prince’s eyes stayed on Sho’s. Like he was waiting.

Sho raised his blade and left a clean cut through the air, sending a gush of biting wind towards the Prince. To evade, Matsumoto Jun simply took a step to the side and ducked, and if it weren’t for the mages in the crowd who’d deflected Sho’s attack, some innocent spectator would’ve been injured.

From the sides, Nino shot him an unimpressed look. Sho inclined his head in apology.

A glint of steel and Sho’s arm shot out in time, blocking the stab that aimed for his throat with a flick of his sword. Steel met ice, and when Sho looked down, the Prince stood at least a pace away from his line.

Without the line separating them, the Prince would have easily slipped past his guard. He was faster than what Sho had been expecting.

“You said no magic stood against your sword,” Sho recalled.

“Only yours,” was the acknowledgment before the Prince broke contact, his sword spinning deftly in his hand.

“Because you’re letting it?” Sho asked. The idea had crossed his mind. Then again, perhaps the Prince had been telling the truth since a mage of Sho’s caliber was nowhere to be found in this country. But he had to know.

“When it comes to you,” The Nightwind said evenly, “I don’t need to pretend.”

Sho attacked then, this time summoning tiny ice blades that accompanied his slashes. They were all deflected with a practiced, well-aimed flick of a wrist, Moonshine shattering the ice into shards. Blow by blow, the Prince parried all of his attacks. It didn’t matter which element he summoned to his will; they never touched the Prince.

When they broke apart, sweat had accumulated over his husband’s brow, his chest heaving with exertion. Sho was no better; he had perspired considerably under his robes.

He took a sweeping glance at the crowd and noted that it had increased in size as more people had gathered to watch. It must have made an amusing piece of news in the citadel: the Crown Prince was in the training grounds, locked in battle with his new husband. Sho wondered how many of these people came to see if the Prince would gut his spouse with his sword.

Sho adjusted his grip, letting his weapon touch the ground. He felt for the earth and heard it hum back, a tremor so faint it could’ve been mistaken for anything else.

He’d been manipulating the water, the wind, and fire. None of them had any effect on his opponent. But as the earth answered and the ground trembled, Sho summoned sand, turning them into gusts that were as sharp as blades, lethal should they make contact.

With each wave of his sword, the sands listened. They were easily deflected, but Sho flicked his fingers and called forth a small gust that slipped past the Prince’s defenses.

When he noticed it, Moonshine was directed too far out to block it. It was aimed for his throat and Sho took a step, finally crossing the line and deflecting his attack with his sword of ice.

The crowd held its breath.

The Nightwind’s free hand shot out, grasping Sho’s wrist, Sho’s weapon raised between them. His gaze darted to the ground, seeing Sho with a foot past the line, and Sho flashed him a smile when the Prince looked back at his face.

“My lord,” he said in reverence, “I believe I just won.”

Around them, the murmurs came. It appeared that no one saw what had happened; the sands had been too quick and too numerous to count. The deflections had occurred too fast for the eyes to follow, and in the confusion, no one saw the tiny gust that Sho had summoned to strike the Prince where it would have counted.

“Is this how you win a fight in Minato?” The Nightwind asked softly, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

“You mean effectively?” Sho asked.

He earned a laugh and a smile that silenced the crowd. It would appear that the Prince had been broken out of his strange mood. Moonshine was pointed towards the ground once more, but the grip around Sho’s wrist was yet to slacken.

“I yield,” the Prince said calmly, in amusement.

These were words that the people of the citadel had never heard. The shock on their faces told Sho as much. The Prince had never surrendered to anyone before.

Sho inclined his head meekly and said, “You have my gratitude. My lord went easy on me.”

He said it aloud, letting everyone hear it. He wouldn’t want to tarnish his husband’s image, not when he’d been winning skirmishes and wars left and right since he’d been deemed fit to lead the army. Whatever tension had been present in the crowd had dissipated, and when Sho met the eyes of some of the spectators, they lowered their gazes with respect.

The Prince let him go then, and Sho crushed his sword into snowflakes by clenching his fist.

“Clever little trick,” was what Sho heard next.

“Did you think I would hurt you?” Sho asked. “Truly?”

“I think,” The Nightwind said carefully, “it depends on how much you wanted to win. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered at all.” He faced Sho now. “What do you want to know? I will answer.”

“Not here,” was all Sho said. He bowed once, like a proper warrior after a fight and left the ring.

He knew that he didn’t need to wait long.

\--

Once inside their bedchambers, Sho took off his now dusty robes and changed into something lighter, at least until he could sneak into the bathhouse to refresh himself. But he couldn’t wait with his nerves frazzled; he needed answers.

When his husband crossed the threshold and the doors shut behind him, he waited until the sword was in its scabbard and deposited back into its rack. The Prince turned to him, and Sho exhaled.

“I’m here for my prize,” he said.

“Which you’ve earned,” the Prince acknowledged. “Congratulations.”

Sho paid his words no mind; he didn’t need the praise at this time. “Two days before Minato fell, you sent a missive to my father.”

At that, the Prince straightened, expression darkening. He hadn’t been expecting this. “Aiba told you.”

“Does it matter?” Sho asked. “You accepted my terms.”

“And I will answer. I saw him talking to you. And Nino, too.”

Sho frowned. “Didn’t you want me to know?”

The Nightwind let out a breath. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The missive was rejected and my emissary was killed.”

“You wrote it yourself,” Sho said. “Aside from you, no one knows what it says. Everyone in your retinue assumed you were offering aid to the South. But that wasn’t just it, was it? Why else would my father refuse and murder your messenger?”

To Sho’s knowledge, his father had been a reasonable man. Not necessarily an amenable one; even Sho had occasional disagreements with him. But his father had had the right disposition that made a King; he wouldn’t have been so rash if he hadn’t had a good reason.

The Prince moistened his lips, back now resting against a pillar. His eyes were nowhere on Sho’s person.

“It was an offer for aid,” he said finally, quietly. “My men, the forces of the West to come to the South’s aid against the war that awaited them. An awfully good offer to pass up, if you ask me.”

“What were your terms?” Sho asked. That couldn’t be just it. “The rest of it.”

Another exhale. “That I would send men to the capital to sneak the royal family out and provide them protection, at least should the war take a turn for the worse.” He tilted his head to the side, gaze far out to the window where the mountain ranges touched the clouds. “Your father thought I would hold you for ransom.”

“And wasn’t that your plan?” Sho asked. It made sense. If the West had the royal family of the South with them, the South had no choice but to obey them. He understood his father then; instead of accepting another possible conqueror, he’d chosen to fight the present one, to delay the West should they truly wished to come for Sho’s country next. “If you had us, you had the South.”

The Nightwind looked at him. “I’ve told you this before: I don’t want the South.”

Sho remembered. Too keenly and vividly.

“And then you crossed the borders anyway in two days to find me,” he said. “You went into such lengths to ensure my safety even as my father refused. Why? Because of some spell? Some clever trick a fourteen-year-old showed you? You owe me nothing.”

“I don’t think I owe you,” Matsumoto Jun said. He sounded helpless.

“You risked war against the North for me,” he said the words clearly now, knowing them to be true. Was he mad? Before the fall of Minato, Sho hadn’t even remembered him. He’d done so much for someone who had barely recalled his face, trapped in a memory that had been easy to forget. Sho had done that trick for hundreds of people and none of them had mattered—most of those people were now dead.

“Why?” he asked softly, quietly. Disbelievingly. Someone this terrifying shouldn’t have attempted to move the world. “You promised to answer truthfully.”

“Then look at me, Sakurai Sho,” was the reply this time, and Sho did, lifting his head to stare at the man’s face. The one that haunted his dreams and his afterthoughts. None of the stories described what he truly looked like, and perhaps none would do so in justice: he was as beautiful and as terrifying as the Night, as alluring and as lethal as the darkness itself.

“Look at me,” Matsumoto Jun said, “and you’ll know.”

Sho burned.

It seared through him, burrowing under his skin and making his blood sing. He stared and found the truth staring right back, heartbreaking in all its honesty. Surely he wasn’t worth this. But the more he looked, the more he saw that it was freely given, like an offering.

Was this how The Nightwind had been looking at him all along? He never noticed. The intensity swept through him, claiming him, marking him. His thoughts and dreams already belonged to this man. He’d made his way in and took residence without him knowing.

Not even Sho. Not until now.

Was it so easy to fall? He didn’t know. He thought about it and realized with shocking clarity that he didn’t dare question: it was already done.

He ached. It wasn’t the kind that destroyed him from the inside, but the kind that summoned storms in its wake and left him boneless. It consumed him in a way that made him want, so fiercely and openly, and he thought, half-mad, looking back at the truth that was gifted to him, the one that he had earned: do you see?

“I failed to protect you when I could have,” the Prince—no, Jun—told him. “And right now, you’re staying here because you feel that you have to.” He shut his eyes. “You’re no prisoner. I know I never made you believe otherwise, but you aren’t.”

“The spell that nearly killed you,” Sho said, finally understanding. “It was intended for you. When I removed it from you, it was designed not just to kill anyone, but you in particular. It was strong enough that it nearly did its job.” He bristled. “You knew.”

“I am not the only one who holds a grudge,” Jun said. “The North believes that I claimed you to usurp the South from them. With my death, had they succeeded, they only needed to declare war on my country. Without me defending it, the West is as good as theirs.”

“If you knew they’ve been trying to kill you, why haven’t you done anything?” Sho asked. All those trips to the borders, those skirmishes he’d always personally attended to. What if there had been other attempts? Sho crossed the space between them, taking hold of Jun’s elbow.

The lack of resistance made him understand. “There were other attempts,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Jun didn’t refute him and said nothing.

“Every time you left the citadel, each time you settled these matters on your own, were there other attempts on your life?” he demanded.

“None of them succeeded,” was the response, and Sho let him go in irritation.

“They almost did with that curse,” he said as a reminder.

“Yes,” Jun agreed. “But the Northerners forgot that you were here. I think they never really took you seriously, not when they found you on your knees in the palace. They never knew what they agreed to when they honored my claim.” He lowered his head. “Majesty. You never truly agreed to the marriage. You think you’re a prisoner but you’re not. Should you wish to leave—”

Sho didn’t let him finish. “Are you letting me go?” He thought of his mother and sister in the frozen lands, the mountains of winter that no one dared to venture except for their people. He thought of his people, of home.

“Have you ever tried to leave the citadel?”

Sho didn’t. He opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again, which earned him Jun’s soft smile.

“If you have, no one would have stopped you,” he said. “I gave the order. And had you done it in the open, there was a retinue prepared to escort you until the borders, even further if you wished. Men who are loyal to me, who would fight to the death if needed. But you never left. I didn't think you needed permission.”

Simply put, Sho didn’t know. This was a kindness he’d never expected.

“You may leave now if you wish,” Jun said sincerely. “You don’t need to tell me where you’ll go. You don’t owe me anything.”

“And the North?” Sho asked, aware of the looming threat that it was for both of them. They wanted Sho dead. And Jun too.

“I’ll deal with them,” was the promise, sealed with a lazy, confident smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sho shut his eyes in resignation and understanding. Jun would fight. He’d create a diversion if he had to, just to make sure Sho would find his way home without anyone noticing. He’d been dealing with skirmishes for months that it was only inevitable that war would soon occur. They both knew it.

His heart broke. He didn’t think it was possible, before. But the gnawing ache in his chest had to mean something as it tore him apart. A few months back, he’d wanted so badly to leave. And now that he could, now that he knew that he always could, the very idea of it wrecked him utterly.

They could kill him. Sho looked at Jun and understood that they both knew it. It would only take another well-timed, carefully planned curse and Jun would fall. Despite his claims that no magic stood against him save for Sho’s, he hadn’t been traipsing with magic of a sinister nature before. The kind that would undoubtedly consume him whole. Without Sho to save him this time, the West was as good as lost.

And still, he was letting Sho go.

“You never made me yours,” Sho told him. “Not even once in all the months that we’ve been married.”

“You never were,” Jun said. “I don’t think you belong to anyone, Majesty. Certainly not to me. The marriage was done out of convenience but it was never true. By the laws of this land, it doesn’t bind you to me.”

Sho made up his mind.

“Tell me to stay,” he said.

Jun’s surprise was evident as he froze in his spot, eyes wide and mouth slack. When he spoke, it was as if every word was heavy against his tongue. “I can’t make you do anything.”

“Try,” Sho said.

Sho saw his expression shutter, his shoulders slumping. His bottom lip trembled.

“Mercy,” The Nightwind said, and Sho stilled. This man hadn’t begged anyone before. A myth like him would never surrender. The idea was preposterous, the image even more so. And yet here he was. “Mercy, Your Majesty.” He didn’t look at Sho anymore, and his body leaned against the pillar for support, like his knees would give any moment.

“Are you afraid I’ll say yes?” Sho asked.

Jun didn’t look at him. He looked at anywhere else but him, and Sho wanted those eyes on him now. “You underestimate how much I want you to,” he admitted, his voice hollow. Detached. “But I will never force you. I would rather watch you leave than make you stay against your will.”

When Jun looked at him, the sight shattered Sho’s heart to pieces. “Mercy,” Jun said. “If I can ask you to do one thing then it’s this: don’t be this cruel. Call me names, accuse me of the things I’ve done—killing in cold blood, burning your city to the ground, selfishly taking you for myself. There’s some truth to that.” He shook his head. “But spare me this cruelty. Don’t take pity on me.”

The ache in Sho tore every sinew, leaving him exposed like a nerve ending, a fiber with no synapse. He felt raw. “Is that what you think? That I’ll stay out of pity? Out of obligation? You said it yourself: I’m not bound to you.”

“I killed your brother,” Jun said, and Sho was overcome with another wave of hurt.

“You said a stray arrow took him,” Sho said.

“But it was mine,” Jun said. “From one of my men. When we entered the city, your brother was defending the gates. At the height of the battle, there was no distinction. By the time I knew, he was dying.”

It dawned on Sho then, and his gaze fell on where Moonshine stood, tucked in its scabbard. If the blade called to him, he wouldn’t be surprised. It had already tasted his family’s blood. It would know his.

“You made it quick.”

Jun shut his eyes, a muscle sliding in his jaw. “Now that you know, can you still make the same offer? Will you stay with the man who killed your brother, with the one who turned your beloved Minato to ashes?” He laughed, mirthless and empty. “Whatever you heard from the South is true: The Nightwind is a monster. He’s no human. He kills whenever his sword is drawn until the bloodlust is satisfied. He’s selfish and cruel, and everything is a game to him. He has no mercy, and yet he asks you for one.”

Sho heard the words before and had believed them. It was what he’d known upon growing up. The asset of the West, a growing power on its own. He had thought it would only be a matter of time before power like that reigned terror across their lands.

But in his heart, he knew. He’d been there when Minato had started burning. It had happened an hour or two before they’d received word of his father’s defeat. By then, the people in that section of the city on fire had been evacuated. The flames had been out of control because Sho had ordered the people to spare their energy and instead make for the mountains.

By the time the sirens had gone off to indicate that the gates had been breached, half of the citizens had been in the woods, the other half on their way. While his brother had defended the walls to buy them time, Sho had been conjuring his spell, the barrier that had held Jun’s forces at bay.

“You started the fire to warn us that you were coming,” Sho realized. “And that the rest of the North was right behind you.”

Jun wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Does my slaughter of the innocent mean nothing to His Majesty?”

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that at all, and Sho wanted him to understand. “Why are you pushing me away?”

A sad smile graced Jun’s features. “After everything I’ve put you through.” He sounded like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is the truth that I selfishly made you earn. This is all of it.”

Oh, how deeply they had misunderstood one another. Even now, they still didn’t see eye-to-eye. Sho wanted to fix it, to tell Jun what he needed to know.

Jun sank to the floor as his knees gave way. Sho knelt beside him, and Jun shook his head once. “There’s no obligation. The North is my problem now. Go without thinking about it.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Sho asked seriously.

“I want you safe,” was Jun’s answer. The fight had left him. The stories weren’t true. Here, he was simply a man. “And if that means you’re somewhere I don’t know, then I don’t mind.” The corners of his eyes glistened, and Sho reached up, thumbing at the moisture that caught there.

“Little crybaby,” he whispered between them, seeing Jun’s eyes widen, “do you have to cry so much?”

With his other hand, he snapped his fingers and summoned butterflies out of fire. Then he flicked his hand and created butterflies out of ice, letting the two spin around one another and surround them.

“If His Majesty will permit me a final act of selfishness,” Jun said as he caught Sho’s hand, holding it between them. His touch was reverent. A cradle that kept Sho’s fears at bay, held them back.

Sho could only nod.

“Then I will take this as a gift that I wasn’t worthy of receiving,” he said. A butterfly made out of ice landed on his hair, the soft flap of its wings rhythmic with the man’s breathing. Jun smiled, a slow curling of his lips that didn’t reach his eyes. Unlike the first time Sho had done this for him, there was no wonder, only sadness. A helpless acceptance.

The hand holding Sho’s loosened as Jun slumped against the pillar, letting his entire weight collapse on it. No one had seen him like this. The warrior was gone. Hollowed out, he seemed powerless. Perhaps he was, and the idea that Sho had caused this felt like tiny pinpricks under his ribcage, a slow, suffocating torture.

He was no stranger to pain. He was used to it. There had been a time that it had accompanied Sho’s every breath: he didn’t gain mastery of his magic without it. The most formidable of his spells required him to bleed. It molded what he was now. But it didn’t feel like this. This pain was visceral, unquantifiable. It swam in him, a tide laden with longing—yearning. He burned in places he hadn’t burned before, imprints reaching as far as the depths of his soul.

“Jun.”

He didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath he received in return.

“I didn’t win,” Jun reminded him. “You don’t have to.”

“You told me it would suffice,” Sho said gently, “if it was real.”

On Jun’s face was a mixture of incredulity and fear, like he wouldn’t let himself believe it. His eyes blazed with uncertainty, and underneath it, something familiar. The intensity could blind Sho, cascading down his spine, molten as it coursed through him. Unrestrained.

He could always hear this man. Distantly, Sho wondered if Jun could hear him in return. In him was a building crescendo, the first notes of a symphony that lay in wait for someone else to complete. In its ferocity was a sweetness that he didn’t dare unleash.

In the South, somewhere close to the docks, had been where most of the rumors had originated. There was one more story Sho would like to find the truth about, to discover for himself.

“They said that The Nightwind killed and loved in equal measure,” he remembered. He’d been to the docks once, and around him came the honeyed voices laced with shy giggles, whispers done with eyes that eluded contact with practiced ease. “That if he had a heart, it was as fierce as every part of him, a chasm that seared through flesh, muscle, and bone. That if it existed at all, it was mercurial.”

Another rumor that he’d heard, this time here in the citadel itself, was that despite the popularity of the pleasure districts in the West, the Prince was never seen around the areas he’d used to frequent. That once he was married, he never looked at another.

“But if it knew how to want,” he said quietly, “if it wanted at all, it would do so savagely.”

Sho reached out, palm flat right where he knew the heart to be. It was calling to him. It had once guided him. A lighthouse from the shore, a beacon through the storm. He heard it with a distant thump, a soft knock that tore him asunder that longer he listened. It thrived. Under his fingertips, beneath the skin that burned like the rest of him, from deep within, it was beating. Incandescent in its surrender.

“How do you refer to me when I’m not there?” he asked. “Tell me.”

Jun met his eyes.

I’m telling you, the erratic pulse under his palm said. Listen.

Oh.

This was the oldest form of magic. An honesty that could never be concealed.

“I will not stay here,” he said. He received a nod, and he smiled. “Let me come with you to the border.”

Jun eyed him in shock.

“The North waged war on my country because they wanted our lands,” Sho said. “And now they are courting war with you with every little disturbance. Let me march beside you next time. I’m better than any of the mages you have in your service.”

“You aren’t in my service,” Jun said.

“No, but I have a personal grudge with them,” Sho agreed. He waved off his illusions, letting them vanish without a trace.

Jun blinked. Under Sho’s touch, he was prized.

“They tried to kill my husband. They will find that I’m not as Exalted as my title suggests.”


	4. Chapter 4

True to Sho’s predictions, it took only a few weeks before the North requested for an audience with the Western King, proposing a truce. They wanted the lands that edged close to their borders, and if the West refused, they could perhaps agree to a yearly tax in exchange for keeping those lands under their name.

Sho expected Jun’s rage when the terms were given. He wrapped a hand around his husband’s arm, the patterns of the vambrace imprinting on his palm. As the Prince’s spouse, he’d been invited to listen to the negotiations, and he’d known that as soon as the emissary from the North opened their mouth, this was no negotiation.

It was a threat.

“Tell your King that there will be no taxes,” Jun said to the emissary. “And tell that cocky General of yours that the occultist he hired was a charlatan. If he wants me dead, he better do it himself and meet me on the field.”

“My King wishes to congratulate His Highness on his full recovery,” the emissary said, bowing low. “We heard you nearly died. Perhaps His Highness himself is the night that would last.” The shrewd intensity of his gaze flitted to Sho’s. “Should darkness come to the West, my lords, the North wishes you good fortune.”

The emissary was long gone by the time the Western King requested for a private audience with his son. Sho left, making his way to their chambers. By now, word had gotten out that war was imminent. The West was no longer neutral. They had been threatened.

When he sensed he was no longer alone, he didn’t look up from the treatise he’d been studying. The divination array he had summoned helped him predict the spells that would be effective on the field after considering the terrain.

“That messenger knew what spell almost killed you,” he said. It had been on his mind since he’d heard it.

“Their King wants me dead,” Jun said. He didn’t appear bothered by it. “He’s just one of the many. Does it matter?”

“You called their mage an occultist,” Sho said with amusement. Sometimes, he forgot that he was married to a walking terror that mainly existed in hearsays. That not everyone knew what kind of man Matsumoto Jun truly was. “If we meet that one on the field, I don’t know what kind of dark magic they will use.”

“Are you afraid?”

Sho thought about it. Fear was when he’d heard the soldiers trying to break down his barrier while his people escaped. Fear was when he’d realized that his brother was dead and that the rest of his family could be, too. Fear was when he’d first felt the shallow rise and fall of Jun’s chest under his palm and thought, what if this was his last?

Fear wasn’t this.

“No,” Sho said. “I’m angry.” Whoever that mage was, they had dared to touch Jun, tainting his body with sinister magic. Killing them would be a mercy that they didn’t deserve.

When the army marched, Sho was given a horse of his own. He’d initially thought he’d be riding with his husband, but the horse had been a gift along with a gilded dagger that Sho had no idea what for.

“For my sanity,” had been Jun’s reply when asked.

The ride to the North would take a week at most, but Jun was anticipating an ambush. “Those vermin never fought fairly. They will surround us or separate us from the men. Worse, they might separate you and me. They know their sorcery failed thanks to you.”

“Ah, but I believe my lord will come and find me should that happen,” Sho said. Jun had located him in a burning city amidst a battle. Sho trusted he’d be able to find him again should he had to.

Together they led the cavalry, and he checked over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the citadel that they were leaving behind. Sho saw that the people had gathered to see their Prince off. Amidst the cheers and songs of farewell, he heard his titles: Southern Prince, some of them said. Lightstorm. Dawnbringer. Exalted. Interspersed with His Highness and Prince Jun.

Belatedly, he remembered that he was a Prince too. To the people, their Princes were departing for war. He had been accepted before he knew it.

Beside him, Jun said nothing. But the look on his face told Sho that he had those eyes on him for a while.

In his obsidian armor laced with silver, Jun became the tales. He wore no helmet to show everyone who he was, to ascertain that his face was the last his enemies would see. The cloak he wore was at the mercy of the winds, the purple so dark it was almost black.

He was a vision. Like this with his barely concealed arrogance, Sho couldn’t look away. He was certain not many could. The Night himself, the emissary had said.

“I should curse you,” Sho said after a moment.

He relished in the quirk of the eyebrow that he received.

“How may I have offended His Majesty?” was the polite query, brown eyes meeting his briefly.

“Each time you left, I dreamt of you,” Sho told him. “Perhaps I should curse you so you will dream of me too.”

Jun’s horse trudged forward, his gloved hand reaching for the reins of Sho’s horse to tug him closer. The fabric of Sho’s robes brushed against armor, and Jun inched closer still.

His gaze was laced with thinly veiled mischief.

“You don’t have to.”

Jun let him go and kicked his steed onward, letting it run into a faster pace.

A storm stirred within the confines of Sho’s heart, tumultuous in its rage. He followed.

\--

The ambush came in the form of shadows, of spectres in the dark with no corporeal form, appearing as fumes of malevolent, vicious energy. They startled the horses at camp when the army had been three days into the journey, overturning all the lanterns and blending with the darkness to conceal themselves.

Swords were drawn and the other mages in the retinue summoned flames to illuminate the surroundings, just as Sho stepped out of the tent he shared with his husband.

Beside him, Jun already unsheathed his sword, the blade glinting under the moonlight.

“What do you see?” Jun asked, eyes narrowed as the men gathered to defend themselves. They formed an orderly line with the mages flanking them to provide enough light.

“Smoke,” Sho said. “Shadows.” This was blood magic. Whoever was controlling these had to be incredibly well-versed in it. “Your weapons can’t kill them.”

“What can?” Jun asked.

“Fire,” Sho said, nodding to the mages. “And light.”

Jun turned to his men and gave the order, and the soldiers doused their swords in oil before letting the flames floating closest to them touch the blades. This way, when the spectres came for them, they were now able to fight back.

A soldier approached Jun for oil but Sho waved him off. Jun gave him a curious look, and Sho simply flicked his wrist.

Moonshine caught in fire, but unlike the glow that the rest of the other swords had, its flame was in deep blue. For a moment, there was a glimpse of a little boy in Jun, staring at his magic in awe.

“Stay here,” Jun said, and Sho quirked an eyebrow at him. “His Majesty doesn’t need to soil his hands with filth.” He eyed the spectres with disdain, his teeth gritting. Someone like Jun would prefer to fight honestly, openly. Against soldiers instead of sinister magic.

“I’m not delicate,” Sho reminded him.

“I never said you were.”

A spectre moved too close and too fast, but Sho had been waiting for it. It had been crawling on the ground silently, creeping upon them when he’d ignited Jun’s sword, and he’d pretended not to notice.

He threw a ball of fire towards it, making it screech before disappearing.

“I really can’t make you do anything,” Jun mused. “Very well.” They walked side-by-side, at the center of the camp where the fighting was at its height and stood back-to-back as the rest of spectres gathered around them.

“It appears they’re after you, my lord,” Sho said.

“Or you,” Jun said. At this point, they couldn’t tell. But Sho wasn’t going anywhere else.

They moved together, synchronous and well-paced, attuned to one another. He knew when and how to duck to avoid Moonshine’s path as it hissed through the air, the blue flame lending it a different kind of glow. Sho let light and fire escape from his fingertips in streaks, dispersing the spectres that had dared to come close.

When it was done, only a few of the men had sustained injuries. Nothing the healers couldn’t fix. The camp, however, was in shambles. Tables had been overturned, drinks had been spilled, the horses still in distress. As Jun barked for order, Sho made his way back to the tent that they shared.

He’d been reading about dark magic before they’d left Toshima. To create projections like this and have them shift forms constantly wasn’t something Sho had expected. They’d won, but only because he knew how to deal with shadows. That wasn’t what bothered him.

It was the feeling that someone out there was testing out his abilities. His way of thinking. Feeling for him, enticing him to show what he could do. His hand. Was this the same trick they’d done to his father? His father had been an accomplished mage, but he’d fallen in the hands of the same men haunting them now.

“I think they were after me,” he told Jun later, when the camp was silent and he was certain no one would hear them.

There was no change in Jun’s solemn expression. Like he’d known. “I told you to stay.”

“I didn’t come here to dawdle.” He sighed. “But they had to be; most of the spectres came for us. Whoever this is that they hired to do their bidding, they’re looking for me.”

“The spell that got me before,” Jun began, “tell me more about it.”

Sho did, divulging all he knew about the Everlasting Night and how close it had been to damning Jun to a monstrous existence. “Something that dark,” he added, “even I don’t know exactly what could’ve happened to you. The books only had the most plausible theories, and I’ve read them years ago.” He had no accurate assessment of results when it came to black magic; the South had condemned the practice of it.

“But you knew exactly how to get rid of it,” Jun said.

“I know my way around shadows,” Sho explained. It was said that he walked in the light. Light could never exist without its opposite; how else would it shine so brightly? But before he was able to, before he learned how to, he first had to conquer his own shadow.

“I know,” Jun said, and Sho understood: the Night itself was full of shadows. He’d found his way around The Nightwind despite their misunderstandings at the beginning. The Night to his Day. Darkness to his Light.

The other half.

“I’m not afraid,” Sho told him. Even without the lanterns, he knew Jun was smiling. “Let them come for me.”

“I know you don’t need protecting, Majesty.” Jun shifted from where he lay, facing Sho now. A rustle followed by a quiet exhale. “But I will, anyway.”

He slept then while Sho watched him, sorely tempted to brush away the strands of hair that fell over Jun’s eyes and kissed his long lashes. But he didn’t, not wishing to disrupt Jun’s slumber.

When the night was silent and the hour was dead, when most of the men were asleep and the ones patrolling around the camp were too far, Sho unsheathed the gilded dagger gifted to him, his reflection staring back as he assessed the blade.

Pain walked hand-in-hand with the most impressive of spells. He felt for the shift in the energy pulsing within him, the way it ebbed and flowed freely, and let his eyes drift shut. The first time he’d done this, war had been right at their doorstep. Now he was on his way to another.

He pressed the dagger hard enough to break the skin.

Blood smeared his fingertips, the tangy odor familiar.

Sakurai Sho always bled for love.

\--

They didn’t make it to the border.

By the sixth day, they found the North awaiting them past the border, having encamped at the edge of the West. Distantly, the villages around the area were covered in smoke, plumes rising to skies and touching the clouds.

He heard Jun’s sharp intake of breath at the sight and felt his fury.

The Northern cavalry had been waiting for them in lines, rows upon rows of soldiers, their banners flapping hard against the wind.

“Hold the line,” was Jun’s order as he kicked his horse forward to the center of the field. Sho’s horse galloped beside him as they rode out together.

The Northern party was led by the same General that had wanted Sho dead. He remembered that face, that scar over the man’s eyebrow from an injury that could’ve blinded him. The rest was composed of bannermen, their faces hidden under their golden helmets.

“You’re trespassing,” was Jun’s welcome for them.

“Your people are,” the General said with a sneer. “Those villagers crossed the border and tilled the land that belongs to us. I thought it fair to teach them a lesson.” He gestured to the burning villages with an unconcerned wave of his hand.

Jun maintained an unnatural calmness in his expression. “Those villages are under my protection.”

“Then His Highness has been negligent as of late, for failing to safeguard the welfare of his people. I hope it’s not because you’ve been preoccupied with your spouse,” the General said. He glanced at Sho and acknowledged him with a nod. “We’ve only heard good things about your marriage, after all. I find it appalling that you haven’t tired of him yet. As pretty as he is to look at, he will soon outlive his usefulness. Or are you keeping him around for formality? Did the men already have him?”

Jun’s expression didn’t change. It was his horse that reacted by trotting in place, undoubtedly sensing its master’s unease. In Sho’s periphery, Sho saw how Jun brought the horse under control once more.

The General smirked. “These are the terms from my King: where the mountain ranges begin now belongs to the North including the villages surrounding it. If the West still wishes to impose, they can pay in gold. Should His Highness agree, my King requests that he come with us willingly to settle the amount himself.”

Jun appeared to consider. “If I submit to your King’s wishes, what happens to my army?”

“They can return to your citadel or wait here for all I care,” the General said. “Your spouse cannot come with you, however. If you like, we can keep him entertained. The men never had a mage before, much less a Prince.” His grin broadened. “Ah, it’s King now, isn’t it? Of the Fallen South. Forgive my carelessness. I only take after The Nightwind’s example.”

Sho didn’t let these comments rile him up, but he felt the tension rise in Jun, taut like a plucked bowstring despite his face maintaining its facade of tranquility.

“Speaking of carelessness,” Jun said, lifting his hand. Two soldiers broke the line, riding forward and separating from the troop. When they were close enough, they deposited their saddle down to the ground and made their way back. “You left us something of yours.”

The General frowned. On the dirt beside the horses’ hooves lay a man in dark, torn robes, his hands and feet bound. His cheek was bruised and the corner of his mouth was bleeding, his bottom lip split.

“I told your emissary that you hired a charlatan,” Jun said, and Sho watched how the General’s face was now blanched. “You thought he was late, didn’t you, when he failed to return after you asked him to summon those spineless apparitions to disturb my camp and hurt my men, to draw us out. But not late enough to cause an alarm; he was still within schedule considering the terrain.”

The General spat on the direction of the mage. Jun’s men had captured him on the fourth day after Sho had told them where to go and what to do. Blood answered to blood. Dark magic was ancient and thus honored the sacrifice, and when Sho had called, it had answered, leading him to its master on this plane, to the one working against them.

One of the bannermen leapt from his horse and dragged the mage to their side, just as the General lifted his gaze to Jun’s.

“General Uchida,” Jun said, “you’ve trespassed the Western borders, terrorized and slaughtered my people. Your men have been traipsing over my lands for years; the recompense for your insolence is long overdue. I will personally deliver my message to your King: I’ve come for him, and I will start with you.”

The General motioned with his hand and the soldier hauled the bound mage to his feet. He barely reached the saddle of the General’s horse before the General drew his sword and slit his throat. The man fell to the ground, gurgling once, twice, then he lay unmoving.

He was dead.

The North always disdained mages of any kind.

Behind their troops, the sun started to set, the first cover of stars floating overhead.

“You always thought too highly of yourself, Prince. The loss of one useless mage means nothing. My mistake was entrusting him with the task of killing you when I could’ve done it myself. Long have I waited for my opportunity, but I will have it,” the General told Jun as his bannermen made a break over the field, returning to their ranks. Trumpets blared as the Northern troop assumed formation, and Sho heard their men do the same. “You will not survive this night.”

Jun’s answer was a frigid smile accompanied by a chilling breeze.

“I am the Night.”

\--

They returned to the army and Jun whirled his horse to face Sho’s and the rest of the troop.

“I have three orders,” Jun said, and the men listened. “First, I want you to hold the lines. The North fights like their horses: they rely on speed and strength, and we will break them from within. Keep to your formation and their charge will collapse.”

The men raised their swords in agreement.

“Second, maintain a perimeter. Once we have them surrounded, leave none alive.”

This marked the first time Sho saw him in command, and he had to admire how strategic Jun was. This was his territory. He knew how to defend it. The men raised their swords once more.

“And finally,” Jun said, eyes trained on Sho’s, “General Uchida is mine.”

He unsheathed Moonshine then, the blade hissing with its palpable hunger. Jun faced the front as the men braced for impact: the Northern troop was charging, the thunder of hooves fast approaching.

“Hold,” Jun said, and the men did.

The collision didn’t touch Sho; he’d been prepared for it and deflected it with an invisible force that sent men flying. Around him, metal met muscle and horses trampled over one another as the fight commenced, the roars of men and animals indistinguishable in the ensuing chaos.

Distantly, Sho tracked Jun, in the way he could hear his every movement. Where Jun was, men fell. And fell. And fell. It didn’t matter what weapon they had or how large they were. When Jun’s sword touched them, they fell to the ground, dyeing the grass red with their blood.

Sho watched him by dividing his attention; he summoned wind and fire to push the Northerners back, set loose to blades made of sand and killed those who dared to come for him. They would find death for even thinking they could touch a hair on his head.

He was aware of Jun somewhere close to him, Moonshine’s steady thrum serving as his guide. The sword was craving and each slash it made was to appease its thirst, and it still coveted. The flutter of Jun’s cloak blended with the skies, and here was the myth, the stories made flesh: The Nightwind on one of his bloodlusts.

A crash of horse against horse sent Sho to the ground, and he was quick to get to his feet. Something must have alerted Jun to his fall; Sho saw him turn and their eyes met amidst the sea of men. Jun had long abandoned his horse and cut through lines with his sword, making his way to where Sho was.

And Sho understood why. General Uchida had found him first.

“Did they ever tell you who killed your father?” the General asked, his golden helmet long gone. Sho assessed his appearance and saw a battle-hardened war hero a decade older, turned overconfident by his recent victory against the South.

The General raised his sword, the blade drenched with rivulets of blood. “This one’s had royalty before. Mage royalty.”

Sho could shatter that sword without lifting his hand. His rage fueled him and shook the balance inside him. His tutors had taught him never to surrender to emotions. Tonight was perhaps the biggest test to his mettle.

“I should have killed you,” the General said. “But that craven Prince ambushed us on the way and made it look like an accident, saying it was a taste of my own medicine.” He spat on the ground. “But no matter. After I kill you, I’ll kill him too.”

He lifted his sword and swung, and Sho allowed him at least three blows which he evaded without summoning his magic.

“You’re as craven as him,” the General said, hurling insults after another with each strike of his that never made contact. Sho continued to dodge, duck, taking measured steps and never lifting his hands.

He stopped when he was close enough, having led the General to where he wanted him all along.

“My lord,” he said, speaking for the first time in a while, “he is yours.”

General Uchida couldn’t have seen. By the time he understood what had happened, he was wide open, his sword halfway through a futile arc that would never make contact. Before him stood Jun, Moonshine already driven through the General’s armor, piercing gold and flesh and going further still.

Mania flashed through General Uchida’s eyes as he looked at Sho. In his final breath, he uttered with mocking reverence, “Exalted.”

Jun pulled his sword out, the General becoming another addition to the pile of bodies that surrounded them. He turned and strode to where Sho was, concern in his features.

“I’m not hurt,” Sho assured him.

He may have spoken too soon. Without warning, a flare of lancinating pain erupted from his flank, sending him a step back. Half-dazed and gasping, his hand covering the wound in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding, he lifted his head and saw a Northern man attack Jun from behind, a sword piercing through his flank.

Except Jun didn’t feel it. Jun had been looking at him, and by the time he’d noticed, he was already stabbed.

Jun killed the soldier by beheading him, then he was right next to Sho, white-faced as he gathered his bearings to understand what had happened.

“What have you done?” he asked, and Sho’s vision began to swim. The sword had aimed true, and there was, he noted distantly, a lot of blood.

Jun’s eyes were wide and disbelieving.

The fear etched on such a handsome face was something to behold.

Sho remembered the stillness of the night and blood on his fingers. He’d bled twice that night: the first to discern where the dark mage had been hiding, and the second to cast the strongest protective spell he knew, that any blow that would befall on Jun’s person on the battlefield would transmit itself to his.

He didn’t think anything could touch The Nightwind.

Somehow, he was aware of arms coming around him as the fight neared its end. They were winning. The men were shouting in victory, a resounding cacophony of Jun’s name and his title.

“I bled for you,” he answered, and knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sunbladess) if you'd like to have words. :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All tags apply now.

  
  
Sho awoke to familiar surroundings. He half-expected to be in a tent, still in a makeshift camp half the way back to the citadel. Instead he was on a bed of silk, half of his body hidden under the covers. Warmth and fine thread lay under his fingertips.  
  
Someone was holding his hand.  
  
He shifted to look and waited for the pain, bracing himself for it. But it didn’t come.  
  
Jun stared at him in the way that reminded him of their first meeting: disbelief admixed with veiled exhilaration, the warmth of his hand complementing the intensity of his gaze.  
  
For a terse, quiet moment, nobody spoke. Then Jun let out a breath, a sigh laced with relief.  
  
“I’ve been promised that you will make a full recovery,” Jun said.  
  
They were in Toshima. Sho sat up and did so without difficulty, and he reached for his side when Jun let him go. His trunk had been wrapped in bandages laced with the healing arts, and he smelled faintly of peppermint.  
  
He had to swallow a couple of times to get the words out, and when they did, they were a garbled mess of syllables that hardly made any sense. His throat ached from disuse.  
  
Jun handed him a cup of water which he drank greedily, sating his parched throat. The droplets that went past the edge of the porcelain cup were now caught at the back of Jun’s hand as he wiped them off. Sho tried not to lean towards his touch and failed, but he decided not to berate himself for it.  
  
When he spoke this time, the words came out clear. “How many days has it been?”  
  
“The healers put you in a trance to facilitate a swift recovery,” Jun said. “It’s been a week and a half.”  
  
That would explain the lack of immediate pain and momentary dehydration.  
  
“And the North?”  
  
Jun inclined his head. “Their King is—humbly, I’ve been told—requesting for an audience with my father after their defeat at the border. My father is making the Northern messenger wait and plans to decline.”  
  
Sho laughed, though it sounded more like a choked cough. It didn’t matter; this was a piece of excellent news to wake up to. For his greed, the Northern King deserved that.  
  
“Your spell couldn’t be undone,” was what Jun said next. His amusement had vanished, replaced by disapproval that he didn’t bother to mask. “Nino told me it’s beyond his knowledge. Aiba said blood begets blood, but advised me against cutting myself since it will, undoubtedly, transmit to your body instead. I would ask our occultist friend, but he’s been dead for a while now.”  
  
“Ah,” Sho noted with a hint of satisfaction, patting on his side once, “the spell still holds, then.”  
  
Both of Jun’s eyebrows lifted.  
  
Sho flashed him a smile. “You must understand. I know what blood does, the exchange it entails when I perform a spell. But that doesn’t mean I’ve tried every spell that requires it. When I cast that one, I had no idea if it would work. So it relieves me to know that it did.”  
  
He earned an admonishing look.  
  
“Besides,” he reasoned, “I didn’t think you would get hurt.” Then upon consideration, he amended, “Well, you did but didn’t. I’ve always been curious about the limits of my spellcraft. Knowing it worked as I intended pleases me.”  
  
“Yes, I’m certain you’ve satisfied your curiosity and your tireless pursuit of knowledge to perfect your arts,” Jun said, eyes narrowing. His tone wasn’t lost to Sho. “Undo it. Now.”  
  
“I’d love to,” Sho told him, “but I’m still recovering.” He patted his side again to emphasize. He savored the look on Jun’s face at the moment, the blatant objection that his features held so well. He was always transparent. “I will once I’m back on my feet.” He put a hand over his heart this time. “I promise.”  
  
Jun sighed, and Sho saw it because he’d been waiting for it: an upward roll of his eyes that left a smile on Sho’s face. He liked this side of Jun, the impatient Prince who had no idea how to show how much he cared. It was endearing.  
  
“Aiba said it would scar,” Jun said, eyes on Sho’s solar plexus. “The sword entered through my flank, piercing diagonally as it was angled upwards. He did his best but it would leave a mark.”  
  
“I’m no stranger to scars, my lord,” Sho said. He showed him his fingers, the ones that bore the cuts when he’d drawn his own blood.  
  
“I was wondering where that was from,” Jun told him, and Sho recalled that when he’d first opened his eyes, Jun had been holding his hand.  
  
Sho observed him, dressed down in his leathers, the shadows under his eyes. He must’ve kept a constant vigil at Sho’s bedside, only leaving when necessary and never long enough. Sho savored the undivided attention now despite knowing he always had it. He had his particular kind of selfishness, and he saved it for this man alone.  
  
“Come to bed,” he said, patting the space next to him.  
  
Jun didn’t move.  
  
“Don’t begrudge me now,” he added. “You were worried, and I’m sorry about that. But I’m feeling quite all right now, though I’d like to go back to sleep.”  
  
“Then sleep. No one will disturb you.”  
  
Sho sighed in frustration. He forgot that at times, Jun could be difficult if he wished. Was this Sho’s punishment for his machinations? He hardly deserved this. “Come to bed. It’s my reward for surviving.”  
  
“You were in harm’s way because of your own doing,” Jun said, but he rounded the bed anyway, kicking off his boots. When he got under the covers, he was mindful of the space between them, as if he didn’t wish to crowd Sho or to make him uncomfortable. “You’re still recovering, you said.”  
  
“I am,” Sho affirmed. He remembered all the times he’d slept alone on this bed, whenever the borders required defending. They had made him yearn in ways he could never admit. “But I like having you near.”  
  
His eyes drifted shut, and he felt the tendrils of sleep creep upon him, swathing him in layers of comfort.  
  
He succumbed to his dreams, knowing they would consist of the man beside him.  
  
\--  
  
This time, what roused him was the phantom sensation of fingers in his hair, which ceased and disappeared the moment he opened his eyes. Their chambers were still dark, the hour was late and the stillness of the night was an unhurried, steady rush that he gradually adjusted in as he woke slowly.  
  
In the dark, he found Jun watching him.  
  
He was closer than before; the side of his head resting against his hand with his elbow bent as he half-loomed over Sho. Sho shifted to face him properly, and he reached out unbidden, fingers lightly tracing the proud curve of Jun’s jaw.  
  
Jun didn’t move. Only Sho’s touch did, familiarizing itself with the skin of another, straying as far as the man’s chin and searching, searching. He ran a finger over the mark he knew to be there, right under the bottom lip, and a shudder escaped before Jun suppressed it.  
  
There was no difficulty in finding him. Sho let the spreading warmth serve as his guide, lightly touching, tracing, exploring. He knew that above that mark sat another one, then another—three small, pinpoint changes in pigmentation that he’d forgotten the sensation of.  
  
In his dreams, the details were muddy at most. If he dreamt of their bedchambers, the interior was a blur, something his subconscious couldn’t recreate. But the finer details, like the cut of Jun’s cheek, the exact color of his eyes, the timbre of his voice, and every mark that littered his face down to his neck—those were replicated with accuracy, like no fog in his brain could ever cover them up.  
  
Even in dreams, he would know this man.  
  
He wasn’t sure who moved first. Maybe they both did. But he felt a pause, like time was warped and suspended, followed by a breathless, quiet exhale from Jun before their mouths met. Sho had to crane his neck a little for a better angle, and— _there_.  
  
It felt dizzying to be kissed like this. It was different from the first time; that one was all hardness and passion, forceful and claiming. That was molten heat, fire lapping at the edge of his touch, feverish and intoxicating. But not this.  
  
This was akin to the first taste of spring after a prolonged winter—a sweet, sparkling promise.  
  
Sho found that he preferred either way. This was slower than the last time, like they were mapping each other out. And he realized that they were, that each press of Jun’s lips against his was something they had earned and to be cherished.  
  
Jun reached for his face then, thumb stroking his cheekbone, keeping him in place. His hand that had traced Jun’s jaw fell away, only to be caught in Jun’s, the one that didn’t cup his cheek. They kissed until it started to ache. They kissed until they shared it all: the spark that reflected off the teary eyes of a teenage boy, the embers that swallowed Minato, the chill of the evening breeze in Toshima, the cover of stars at the borderlands.  
  
Jun followed the cusp of his mouth with his thumb, applying a smidgen of pressure there.  
  
“You have to tell me,” he whispered, more breath than voice. Somewhere in him was an iron grip that guarded his urges at bay, a desperate, final attempt at control.  
  
A part of Sho wanted that control to snap.  
  
But he took it slow. He found that while the thought was maddening, he’d much rather have this: quiet, soft, gentle. Like a lover’s caress.  
  
“I can’t,” he admitted, and felt Jun stiffen. He would never find the words. Words were meaningless here, not when they simply had to listen and to feel.  
  
He entangled their fingers together and squeezed lightly. “But let me show you.”  
  
He guided Jun to where he wanted him, in between his thighs and closer still. Jun kissed his way down, from his neck to his collarbone, and when his hands fisted on Sho’s inner robe, Sho stroked his knuckles to tell him yes.  
  
Jun, he discovered, was greedy. When he had Sho’s robe open, he continued his trek southward, leaving no skin untouched by his lips. A cascading flow of endless warmth. A tongue flicked over his navel and Sho jerked, overly sensitive.  
  
Slender fingers caressed his thighs, and it was too much that he had to hide half of his face behind the back of his hand, the other half mashed against the pillows. In truth, Jun hadn’t done much yet. But knowing that this was a man with unparalleled prowess on the battlefield sent Sho shivering.  
  
He was always easily enticed with the idea of raw, uninhibited power.  
  
His other hand fisted in Jun’s hair, telling him where, and Jun reached for the waistband of his undergarments, helping him remove them.  
  
Exposed, Sho’s breath hitched. His grip loosened, strands falling from his fingers as Jun’s touch shifted. A hand braced itself against the inside of his thigh while the other wrapped around him and gave a teasing, experimental stroke.  
  
He trembled. It was impossible not to; the touch was quickly followed by a hot, rushing exhale as wet heat swallowed around him. Jun’s mouth was as alluring as the rest of him, doling out pinpricks of blinding pleasure that sent Sho’s hips arching off the bed.  
  
A filthy sound echoed in the room as Jun broke off, hand providing friction and driving Sho mad. He returned with a tongue that ran from base to tip, and Sho muttered his name for the first time.  
  
“Don’t,” was the command, a palm flat on his stomach and pushing him back.  
  
Sho shuddered. This might be the only time he’d do as he was told.  
  
Jun resumed with his teasing, prolonging and heightening Sho’s pleasure and drawing back whenever Sho came frustratingly close, lithe fingers leaving bruises on the inside of his thighs. Marking him. Imprints that would chafe and sting come morning.  
  
Blindly, Sho grabbed one of Jun’s hands, squeezing. Jun ceased, and Sho nudged his side with a foot to tell him without words, and he waited.  
  
A shuffle to their side and Sho heard the clink of a vial, trapped now in Jun’s palm. He eventually felt the press of a slick finger, slow and torturous when it finally slid inside as he relaxed. The heat returned around his cock, moving in tandem with the finger that opened him thoroughly, mercilessly.  
  
Words eluded him. He was a slave to the sensation of Jun around him, in him—all over him. Jun mouthed at his neck, down the curve of his shoulder. Another finger and he gripped the sheets tight, desperate for something to anchor him. It had been too long since, and even longer since he truly wanted.  
  
By the third, his hips were canting. Jun wrapped a firm hand around him, squeezing, staving off his release once more, and Sho was falling apart with Jun’s name on his lips like a plea, a prayer directed to the Heavens perhaps, where Jun was his absolution.  
  
Vaguely, he was aware he might be begging. It hardly mattered.  
  
There was no rush when Jun finally pressed into him, but as he braced himself on his forearms and had Sho’s thighs bracketing his hips, Sho saw the man he’d first seen in the open grass fields close to the Northern borders, his cape as dark as the night, fluttering against the harsh, unforgiving wind, his sword writing symphonies of death and destruction with each strike.  
  
A shift sent Jun deeper and impossibly close, and Sho gasped. He clung to Jun’s shoulders now, strength and muscle and resilience trapped in his hands. When Jun moved, he did it too slowly that it should have felt like the break of dawn across the horizon, a teasing kindness. Instead Sho felt every inch of him—every shudder, every insistent press of fingertips around his wrists, every scrape of his nails against the softest skin.  
  
It was said The Nightwind fought and made love in equal measure.  
  
Sho craved. Each push was slow, slow, and Sho savored the sensation of fullness before meeting Jun halfway, and a hitch finally went past Jun’s lips. He opened his eyes to Jun staring at him, eyes wild and hungry. Predatory. Here was the terror, the slayer of men and harbinger of death.  
  
Strangely, Sho didn’t feel like prey, trapped under his mercy. It didn’t feel like surrender, either. Surrender was when he’d donned the wedding garments and walked out to the Great Hall and subjected himself to his new fate. Surrender was whenever he’d drawn his own blood, his emotions dictating his actions.  
  
He didn’t feel captured. He felt...found.  
  
Under the weight of that stare, that savage want that finally made itself known, Sho understood. This was no request for possession or an attempt at it. This was an offering, done plainly and honestly. Here was all of Jun, and Sho could have him if he wished.  
  
He didn’t wish. He was too far beyond for that now. He broke free from Jun’s grip and reached for Jun, tugging him closer in his desire to possess, aiming for Jun’s sides and back to bear imprints that mirrored the shape of his fingertips. Tomorrow they would bloom to a shade of red before fading to a darker purple, and the thought pleased Sho immensely.  
  
He pushed back until Jun moved, until it was Jun who now lay flat on the bed and Sho was astride him. He didn’t wait for guidance, instead taking what he wanted, having every inch of Jun in him, fucking into his body. He lost himself in it, swam in it and drowned in it—reveled in it. When Jun sat up and sent himself deeper, cradling Sho’s face in his hands, Sho kissed him that was more teeth than lips, his desperation laid bare.  
  
He bit and was bitten in return, and he laughed against kiss-starved and swollen, tender lips. When he inhaled, it was all Jun. When he opened his eyes, he saw Jun, utterly wrecked. When he strained to listen, he heard Jun’s quiet groans, the traitorous thrum of his heart.  
  
Sho darted out his tongue to lick at Jun’s lips, and arched back when Jun retaliated with his teeth, sucking at the column of his throat. Having fought Jun before, he noted that Jun fucked like it was a fight, with a fiery intensity that pulled insistently and never let go. Theirs was an inevitable collision. An ardent war of their own. A sensual dance.  
  
Jun’s fingers found the crests of his hips and clung there when he came, muffling his moan by marking the angle of Sho’s shoulder, the brutality followed immediately by featherlight, affectionate kisses on the bruised skin, an apology intended to soothe. Sho held him close as he caught his breath, and the wind was knocked out of him when Jun shoved him back against the bed.  
  
His mouth returned to Sho’s cock, eliciting a depraved, wretched sound from Sho as he no longer held back. He fell apart like that, vision clouding in bursts of white and pure bliss, floating, reeling.  
  
When he recovered from his haze, Jun now lay beside him, similarly flushed and panting. He was lovelier like this: out of breath and just within reach.  
  
It was impossible to stop wanting him.  
  
One of his fingers idly traced Jun’s chest, lingering on his breastbone. Like him, Jun also possessed scars—the tales of which remained unknown to Sho for now. He followed one with his fingers and almost felt it reach out to him in return, a dull ebb that was nearly imperceptible. A surge of energy flowed through him and he let it course through Jun, a tingling sensation that sent Jun’s mouth parting before it dispersed, causing Jun’s body to jerk slightly.  
  
The spell was undone.  
  
“In my dreams, you’re mine,” Sho said after a moment. “All of you.”  
  
And in those dreams, Sho didn’t say, I belonged to you.  
  
Jun turned to face him, all beauty and shadows. A calming serenity. “This is no dream.”  
  
No. Clever and imaginative as he was, Sho’s mind could never conjure something as sweet as this.  
  
“You said my name,” Sho said.  
  
Jun’s hum was almost a husk.  
  
“Right over my shoulder,” Sho clarified. Jun’s orgasm had been accompanied by one sound, and it was the first time Sho had heard it from him. “I heard you.”  
  
Jun slipped his arm under Sho’s head, pulling him close. With his other, he reached for Sho’s hand and kissed the scars there.  
  
When he smiled, it rivaled the sunrise.  
  
“You always do.”  
  
\--  
  
It took a month for the North to cave and pull their forces back from the borderlands. It involved the kind of politics Sho had been trained for, back when he’d been groomed as the heir. Treaties and peace offerings in the form of lavish gifts and priceless hostages in the form of the Northern King’s only daughter, who was to live her days in Toshima beginning winter.  
  
A prisoner. One of the countless spoils of war.  
  
It reminded Sho of his fate, once. One that he’d narrowly escaped thanks to The Nightwind, but one he hadn’t recognized at the time. But there was no warlord to lay claim to this Northern princess—she wasn’t promised to anyone. She would come to the West to serve her purpose and be a royal hostage, nothing more.  
  
“I read somewhere in your library that it’s common for your people to be married more than once, sometimes simultaneously to different people. Are you sure you don’t want another spouse?” Sho asked idly, when he had his head pillowed against Jun’s chest and Jun’s scent on his fingers. Sharing Jun’s bed was something he indulged in as of late, in alarming frequency that he didn’t let irk him. “I’ve heard that the Northern princess is quite beautiful.”  
  
“And wake the following morning with the curse that can rival the one that nearly killed me?” Jun asked, a laugh lost in Sho’s hair. “No.”  
  
“A concubine, perhaps? Your father has those,” Sho suggested.  
  
“I’m not my father,” Jun said plainly, leaving no room for argument.  
  
“Oh,” Sho said, lacing it with faux disappointment, “since you declined, I guess I’ll marry her then. That is allowed, yes? As a member of the royal family?”  
  
“You will do no such thing,” was Jun’s response, and Sho laughed as he found himself trapped under the comforting, familiar weight of Jun’s body, his delight muffled against Jun’s mouth.  
  
“I’m not so vindictive, my lord,” Sho said after, still breathless. “I won’t curse you should you desire her.”  
  
Jun eyed him skeptically, and he grinned. “But I will definitely do more than startle your horse.”  
  
Part of Jun’s efforts in restoring order was ensuring that the survivors from the burned villages were relocated and given new lands to till, and when peace was finally attained in the West, Sho decided it was time.  
  
He left for the South.  
  
He was a lone rider, and he made it to the frozen mountains after five days, his horse climbing the slippery slopes in careful, measured steps. He tugged his cloak closer around him for extra warmth and continued his trek, which was fruitless for another three days.  
  
Until he reached a clearing and heard people, children laughing. A camp situated deep in the mountains, its edges lined with protective wards. It was their people’s magic, ancient and robust. Anyone who wasn’t from the South wouldn’t have been able to enter.  
  
A snowball was thrown in his direction and he allowed it to make contact, brushing off the snowflakes that now dusted his cloak. The child that had thrown it blinked at him once, twice. She had been playing with other children around her age, and they all stopped to gawk at their visitor.  
  
It was apparent that no one had visited them before.  
  
When the child recognized him, Sho saw her and her playmates run to the direction of the settlement. He dismounted and tied his horse to the nearest tree, and when he made his way back, people had already gathered.  
  
“It’s the Prince,” they were saying over one another, ecstatic and disbelieving, their voices blurring. “Prince Sho. His Highness.”  
  
Then they bowed in unison, not lifting their heads even as they spoke once more. “Your Highness.” He hadn’t heard that in so long from his own people. “You’ve returned.”  
  
Sho scanned the small crowd before him until he found a face that resembled his, only with softer, feminine features. His breath hitched when their eyes met, for she hadn’t lowered her head in reverence.  
  
A second passed too long and she was crying when she finally broke into a run, flinging herself in Sho’s waiting arms.  
  
He hadn’t held his sister in nearly a year. He’d forgotten how to. His hands felt like lead when he lifted them to pull her close, to let her sob against his hair.  
  
“We thought you died,” she told him, bottom lip trembling, but Sho knew it wasn’t from the cold. “We thought they took you prisoner and killed you. Mother, she—she saw you being taken to the West. And after that, you became too far for us to see. We—we thought— _oh_. We mourned.”  
  
“I’m here,” was all he said, murmuring the rest of his assurances close to her ear. Sho let her cry for as long as she needed to, held her hand tight when she sobered up and led him through the camp, to where their mother was.  
  
It was a settlement made of at least fifty tents, huddled together at the top of the mountain, hidden by a thick cover of trees and snow. He looked around and saw how his people had been living in the time he was gone: foraging for fruits in the forest, hunting deer, herding whatever cattle they had managed to take with them up to the mountains when the war had reached the city.  
  
Gone were the illustrious trading and barter done in the marketplaces and fish ports, the farming lands that bore fruit in the right season. In his absence, his people made do with what they had left. The thought made him ache, bone-deep and searing.  
  
It was minutes of walking before they reached a tent that stood near the edge of the settlement, overlooking the cliffside below. His sister guided him and lifted the flap to reveal his mother’s weary but familiar face, and Sho could no longer hold himself back.  
  
He went down on his knees before her and wept.  
  
After, when he once again remembered the feeling of his mother’s hand in his hair, her soothing murmurs in the form of songs that he’d known since he was a boy, he told her everything: the North, what his father had died for, what had killed his brother. He told her about the missive, about the tales from the docks that had no basis, about his life in the West by The Nightwind’s side.  
  
He told his mother of sinister magic that had targeted him, of formless shadows overcome by light. He told her about how the Everlasting Night had come for The Nightwind, and how it had given way to the dawn.  
  
And finally, he told her about a boy on the cusp of adulthood, one who had loved climbing trees but sprained his ankle on a sunny morning in the middle of autumn, many years ago. He told her about the magic that bound them, showed her with his butterflies made out of flickering flames.  
  
When he was done, he had no more words. Whatever strength he had was depleted by the journey itself before it was finally snuffed out by the truths that he had divulged. When he was done, though, he could finally breathe, and air no longer felt trapped in his lungs.  
  
It took a while before his mother spoke. His sister stood by his side, her hand firm around his shoulder. She had listened to every word without interruption, only shedding more tears. But when Sho was done, he saw no judgment in her eyes.  
  
“Sho,” his mother said, and hearing his name from her lips felt like coming home. No child should suffer without a mother’s caress. “I will never fully understand what you went through. But in my own way, I will try.”  
  
When Sho looked at her, she smiled, tear-stricken but full of love. She stroked his cheek and Sho leaned towards it, chasing after it. A soothing balm to all his worries.  
  
A blessing, and one that he always strove for.  
  
“But I mean this in the best possible way,” she said, and Sho thought there was no need to try. His mother had already succeeded. “Why are you even here?”  
  
She had always known his heart before he did.  
  
\--  
  
When he had left Toshima and the rest of the West behind, he had been alone.  
  
When he returned, he’d brought what was left of the South with him.  
  
As they entered the gates, it felt like the Toshima he’d first arrived at had changed. In his absence, the people flocked to meet him. Up ahead where the fortress stood were familiar faces, from the guards to the rest of the soldiers—men who had fought alongside Sho—the attendants and the servants, the mages. Even the little servant girl he’d lent his powers to had come, her eyes bright as she waved eagerly in welcome.  
  
The arid, icy mountains of the South would never be a home. His people had been left to survive when they could live, and Sho thought he owed them a better life at least. As their Prince. Minato was gone and the South with it, but its people weren’t.  
  
And so he had left to climb the mountains, to find his people and offer them a home, one that suited them and allowed them to be free. They needed not to hide in fear, to live in the shadow of it and cower. Here, they could begin anew.  
  
The Western mages weren’t as skilled as those who had been born, raised, and trained in the South. But that could change. It was something Sho had witnessed himself and sparked the idea in him. They could learn from Sho’s people and become better in their craft; they didn’t need to limit themselves when the resources were at hand.  
  
And Sho had been more than willing to share what he knew, but he couldn’t do it alone. And so he had trekked through frozen forests and mountains to ask for help, and his people had answered. The South had come, and with their arrival, perhaps a new age.  
  
His people had been reluctant, at first. Like Sho, they’d grown up with monstrous tales about The Nightwind and his army of bloodthirsty soldiers. But on the return journey, Sho had been talking to them, telling them his version of the tales and rumors that surrounded his husband. The ones that were true and the ones fabricated, embellished so excessively it warped the perception of the listener. He liked to think he had moderately succeeded in convincing his people to see for themselves.  
  
“Is it a joyous union, Your Highness?” one had asked when the party had been two days into the journey, camping out in the middle of an open field.  
  
Sho had smiled in answer, remembering a string of rubies that he’d refused to wear. “Not at first.”  
  
“How does The Nightwind refer to you, Your Highness?” another had asked on the fifth day, when they'd stopped on the road to let the horses rest and graze.  
  
Sho had looked at the stars in thought, each thrum of Jun’s heart under his palm now a distant but fond memory. It needed no saying. “With more honesty than he’s ever shown anyone.”  
  
He carried the memories with him as he led the Southern party through the citadel and looked ahead, past the throngs of people that welcomed them, where his heart told him to as he listened to it. And sure enough.  
  
At the entrance of the fortress stood The Nightwind in his armor, his cloak a slave to the winds. The weight of his gaze felt like a blaze as it followed Sho, until he finally made it to the courtyard and dismounted from his horse, climbing up the steps to where The Nightwind was.  
  
“You’ve returned,” was the greeting when he stood close enough.  
  
“How long was I gone?” Sho asked.  
  
A blink. He looked fierce when he was in full regalia, in that signature armor of his with his blade strapped to his belt. Sho felt his people pause, assessing the situation. He decided to give it time; they’d only just arrived.  
  
“A month,” Jun said, and Sho heard the longing when he thought to listen for it.  
  
It lay unspoken between them, but Sho understood: he had to make up for his absence. Sho was looking forward to it.  
  
“I dreamt of you each time you left,” Sho reminded him. “Did you dream of me this time?”  
  
Look, Jun’s eyes seemed to say, and Sho saw the answer: every night.  
  
Jun smiled, and Sho knew he was finally home.  
  
“I told you. You didn’t have to put a spell on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have regrets now that I realized that Jun's title should have been The Wolf, in homage to his best starring role to date. Goodbye to that opportunity forever.
> 
> The music that mainly inspired this is The West Wing track from the Beauty and the Beast OST, particularly the strings from [1:05 to 1:30](https://youtu.be/9yiv38eYr5Y?t=65). But lbr I also looped the [Prologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1tuVXbxN-A&ab_channel=L%27OrchestraCin%C3%A9matique) by L'Orchestra Cinematique because the original idea for this was Jun as a cursed warlord in some dark fairy tale but I didn't make an outline so here we are. This is so much longer than what I had in mind but at this point, I think I'm the only one still surprised.
> 
> The other instrumental that inspired this when I finally accepted that it's not going to be the fairy tale that I planned is [Briseis and Achilles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mF_Gz6tQ_g&ab_channel=JamesHornerCommunity) from the Troy OST because I'm predictable.
> 
> Tell me if you caught the T.A.B.O.O reference because I was cackling to myself when I wrote that.
> 
> To everyone who read this: from very kind users who kept gracing my inbox with their lovely comments to the silent lurkers and guests who pressed kudos—y'all are awesome. Thank you for indulging me and my very specific need that is warlord Jun.
> 
> ETA (05/17/2020): this fic has a graphic c/o twitter user kanaribroken which you can find right [here](https://twitter.com/kanaribroken/status/1261944644973195265?s=21). Many thanks!!


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